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The Best Hearthstone Decks in the Meta!Tue, 14 Aug 2018 23:34:40 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.8Mecha’thun Decks Are Here – How To Play With And Against The Mecha’thun Comboshttps://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/mechathun-decks-are-here-how-to-play-with-and-against-the-mechathun-combos/
https://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/mechathun-decks-are-here-how-to-play-with-and-against-the-mechathun-combos/#commentsMon, 13 Aug 2018 16:37:20 +0000https://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/?p=120570The Boomsday Project added a new Neutral minion to Hearthstone's portfolio of one-turn-kill (OTK) combos: [card_link name="Mecha'thun"]. This ten-mana behemoth requires a fair bit of thought to use effectively. Its game-winning effect is a Deathrattle, so you need to figure out how to get it killed without giving your opponent a chance to Silence, [card_link name="Hex"], or [card_link [...]

]]>The Boomsday Project added a new Neutral minion to Hearthstone’s portfolio of one-turn-kill (OTK) combos: Mecha'thun. This ten-mana behemoth requires a fair bit of thought to use effectively. Its game-winning effect is a Deathrattle, so you need to figure out how to get it killed without giving your opponent a chance to Silence, Hex, or Polymorph it, and it also requires that you have no cards in your deck, hand, or battlefield when it dies in order to trigger the game-winning effect.

While this may seem like a hard puzzle, all classes have ways to pull off the combo and multiple classes have viable decks built around defeating your opponent with this combo. In this article, we’re taking a look at how Mecha’thun works, how to use the effect and how to play against Mecha’thun in general, and what good Mecha’thun decks there are for various classes and how to play them and how to play against them.

Mecha’thun in Detail

Mecha'thun‘s Deathrattle is only triggered when you have no cards in your deck, hand, or battlefield. Deck and hand are fairly clear conditions – you’re going to need to play a deck that is able to draw a lot and is able to dump the hand rapidly to leave no leftovers that would disrupt Mecha’thun.

Battlefield is a concept less often seen in Hearthstone – it represents the minions on the board. Therefore, you can have active Secrets and you can also wield a weapon when you kill your Mecha’thun, the Deathrattle will still work. Likewise, you can have a dormant The Darkness on the board and Mecha’thun will still work. What you can’t have is other minions left alive after Mecha’thun dies.

There are some Neutral cards that offer support for Mecha’thun combos:

Hemet, Jungle Hunter destroys all cards that cost three or less from your deck. This can be used to remove most unessential cards from the deck to get to the combo faster.

Galvanizer reduces the cost of Mechs in your hand by one, and as Mecha'thun is a Mech, two Galvanizers can be used to bring the cost of Mecha’thun down to eight mana, enabling more ways to trigger its Deathrattle. You could also go for more discounts with Zola the Gorgon or Youthful Brewmasters, but in practice such complicated combos are too difficult to pull off reliably.

Playing Against Mecha’thun

When you’re facing a Mecha’thun deck, you generally know that the opponent will draw through their entire deck and then combo you down at the very end. One of the best ways to prevent this from happening is to kill your opponent before they get anywhere near their combo. Alas, you may not always want to play an aggro deck, so you may want to take other precautions.

In Wild format, there is always Dirty Rat, the best Neutral anti-combo card ever created in Hearthstone. However, it is not available in Standard, so slow decks have way fewer options there.

One Neutral tool that can disrupt some Mecha’thun combos is Skulking Geist, which removes all one-mana spells from the opponent. Unfortunately, Geist can only disrupt some Mecha’thun combos, and even if you prevent the opponent from instantly killing their Mecha’thun, you still need a Silence or transformation effect, such as Hex or Polymorph to finally deal with the threat.

The best Neutral tool in the game against Mecha’thun is Lorewalker Cho. If you give your opponent a spell that cannot be used to kill the Lorewalker, then you can keep bouncing that spell back and forth and never let your opponent have an empty hand. Unfortunately, Lorewalker is a weak card in any other matchup.

Another disruptive tool is Mana Wraith: if Mecha’thun costs too much to play, it is going to stay in hand. Like Lorewalker Cho, Mana Wraith is generally a weak card that should only be teched into the deck in case of a severe Mecha’thun infestation.

In some cases, Nerubian Unraveler can also help: for combos that rely on Mecha’thun together with spells, making the spells more expensive can prevent the combo. Unraveler is also a semi-viable card by itself as a general spell disruption card with decent stats, so it is a worthwhile tech consideration. However, some Mecha’thun combos are based on minions only, so Unraveler does not help in all situations.

The strongest non-aggro counter to Mecha’thun available in Standard is Warlock: with Gnomeferatu and especially Demonic Project, Warlock has the premium anti-combo toolkit in the game. Demonic Project just before the combo turn is almost guaranteed to hit a combo piece and win the game, the only Mecha’thun deck that can survive it is Warlock.

Mecha’thun Decks in Detail

With the generics of Mecha’thun clarified, it is time to take a look at how Mecha’thun is used in specific classes and with specific combos. They all follow the general principles presented above, but each of them takes things a little differently.

Mecha’thun Priest

There are multiple takes on Mecha’thun Priest available. Some of them focus on long-term survival (with Awaken the Makers), but it seems likely that the fast cycle variants will prevail in the long term: combo decks typically want to complete their combo as fast as possible, and the faster they are, the better they generally are – and Mecha’thun Priest is about as fast as it gets.

Most variants rely on the same final combo. When they enter their final turn, they typically have five cards in hand, although zero-mana spells and any Radiant Elementals on the board may allow additional unrelated cards in some niche situations.

The mainstream Mecha’thun Priest combo is as follows:

Play Reckless Experimenter for 5 mana. All other Deathrattle cards now cost three less mana and die at the end of the turn.

Play Coffin Crasher for 3 mana. This has to be played second to trigger the Deathrattles in the correct order.

The Priest combo is difficult to counter, because it uses only minions, no spells, and it can also kill any leftover minions Priest has on the board. Demonic Project Warlock is the hard counter, as hitting any of the five combo minions ruins the combo. Surprisingly, Tempo Mage can also counter the deck unless it fatigues itself with Aluneth: a properly timed Explosive Runes prevents the Priest from playing the minion-based combo as it kills the Reckless Experimenter and makes the other cards too expensive.

This is a fast cycle variant of the deck that is capable of getting rid of the entire deck as early as turn 10. Hemet, Jungle Hunter is a key card that destroys everything else from the deck except for Psychic Screams (that can be used to buy more time, anyway) and the combo pieces.

Mecha’thun Warlock

Mecha’thun Warlock has a lot going for it: tons of removal, tons of card draw, and a combo that does not require you to empty your hand in advance.

The Mecha’thun Warlock combo does require some setup as you need to play two Galvanizers while holding Mecha'thun in your hand to reduce its cost down to eight mana. From there, the combo is Mecha'thun + Bloodbloom (spells now cost Health instead of mana) + Cataclysm – you kill everything on the board and discard your entire hand while conveniently triggering a game-winning Deathrattle effect, as long as you have drawn your entire deck. GG!

The Warlock combo is notoriously difficult to counter. Skulking Geist does nothing. Lorewalker Cho does nothing. Even Demonic Project may or may not help, because the Warlock does not have to empty their hand before the combo and can therefore keep redundant minions there. Mana Wraith delays the combo, but with all the removal available to Warlock, getting rid of it is no problem – especially because Warlock can have removal cards in hand going into their preferred combo turn.

Senfglas has kept experimenting with the list, including versions with one copy of Giggling Inventor and two copies of Glacial Shard instead of Rotten Applebaums and Tainted Zealot. Whichever version turns out to be the best, it is important to keep the mana curve low so that cards are easily played from hand and do not clog your hand and prevent further card draw.

Mecha’thun Warrior

Mecha’thun is used in some Warrior decks simply because it is a very big and scary Mech that goes well with Dr. Boom, Mad Genius and The Boomship. However, there are some who want to go further. There are some who want to OTK as Warrior. For them, there is a combo deck available.

The Warrior Mecha’thun combo is based on The Boomship. Play The Boomship to summon Mecha'thun and Malygos, proceed to Inner Rage both of them (they go down to four and six Health, respectively), and finally play a Whirlwind to deal six damage to them both and completing your combo, as long as it also empties your hand and your deck is empty.

In theory, you can also The Boomship a lone Mecha'thun and Shield Slam it to death if you have enough armor, or you could build a deck with some Galvanizers to reduce the cost of Mecha'thun to bring it down to have mana to cast Shield Slam. Having enough armor when your deck is already empty and you’re in fatigue can prove to be problematic though. The Malygos combo does not rely on any such factors, making it more consistent.

Mecha’thun Druid

Mecha’thun Druid is probably one of the weaker Mecha’thun decks available. If you’re already playing Druid, which is a super powerful class with tons of options, why go for one of the least reliable win conditions available to the class?

That said, it is possible to kill people with Mecha’thun Druid. You can ramp and you can draw a lot of cards. As a downside, you cannot use Hemet, Jungle Hunter very easily, as you need multiple cheap cards for your final combo, and you do not have a good way to clear your own board on your Mecha’thun turn.

The basic Druid Mecha’thun combo is Mecha'thun + Innervate + Naturalize. Boom, one dead Mecha’thun for a total of 11 mana, one of which is provided by Innervate. Alas, this combo is prevented by Skulking Geist, and therefore some lists run a backup combo for control matchups.

The backup combo is to play Mecha’thun on its own to get a four-mana Mecha’thun in your Flobbidinous Floop. Assuming you have been Geisted, you can proceed to kill this Floop Mecha’thun with Moonfire and Wrath. Notably, you cannot do it with Swipe, which can only target enemies, not your own minions.

The backup combo is countered by Demonic Project Warlock and by Lorewalker Cho, but cards that merely make minions or spells more expensive cannot prevent it.

Here is Disguised Toast’s take on the archetype that runs both the main combo and the backup combo:

Mecha’thun Rogue

Of all the Mecha’thun combos that seem to have potential, Rogue is the least explored. While Rogue has the ability to draw cards rapidly, they can struggle with both survival and clearing their own board for the Mecha’thun combo.

Mage has Luna's Pocket Galaxy to discount Mecha'thun to a level where direct damage spells could kill it. The spell only discounts cards in deck though, so it cannot be used reliably. If you go for Raven Familiar to tutor for the Pocket Galaxy, you cannot have other spells in the deck, and that leaves you with Voodoo Doll to kill Mecha'thun.

Shaman can kill off a discounted Mecha'thun. Galvanizers are once again the reliable way to go, although a lucky Far Sight can also get the job done. Mecha'thun + Crushing Hand + Zap! pops the Deathrattle. However, Shaman lacks card draw and has a hard time getting anywhere near the combo with an empty hand, empty deck, and no overloaded mana crystals, so it does not look like a viable Mecha’thun combo deck can be built for the class.

The Future of Mecha’thun

Overall, the future of Mecha’thun seems bright. There are several classes where card draw, spending cards from hand, and an easily assemble combo combine for a potent and fast combo deck. There are ways to counter these decks, but for anything else than Warlock it requires specific attention and tech choices that are weak in many matchups.

It will be interesting to see how Mecha’thun decks will be refined over the coming weeks and how fast they can become.

What about you? Have you already played with Mecha’thun? Is there a particular Mecha’thun deck that you enjoy? Let me know in the comments!

]]>https://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/mechathun-decks-are-here-how-to-play-with-and-against-the-mechathun-combos/feed/8Standout Boomsday Project Decks From Up To Day 3https://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/standout-boomsday-project-decks-from-up-to-day-3/
https://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/standout-boomsday-project-decks-from-up-to-day-3/#commentsFri, 10 Aug 2018 19:20:34 +0000https://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/?p=120058The Boomsday Project - second expansion of Year of the Raven - was released three days ago. The new meta is just starting to shape, but most of the pro players are still experimenting, trying to find the best way to play new cards. While old decks with a few new cards are the most [...]

]]>The Boomsday Project – second expansion of Year of the Raven – was released three days ago. The new meta is just starting to shape, but most of the pro players are still experimenting, trying to find the best way to play new cards. While old decks with a few new cards are the most popular builds, we see new, interesting decks popping out every few hours.

Just like every new expansion, remember that the early meta is always very chaotic and it might look completely different in a few days. Decks are chosen based on my ladder experience (playing in Legend), watching the steamers & pros, talking with other high ranked players and early statistics from sites like HSReplay.net or Vicious Syndicate.

These decks are only example lists – meta is adjusting very quickly and more optimized builds might be out at the time you’re reading it!

Before the expansion, everyone thought that we’ll need to bow to our new Druid overlords. But as it seems so far, Warlock is the most dominating class, not Druid. Last time I’ve already featured Zoo Warlock, which was all over the R4-Legend ladder on the first day. Zoo is, of course, still relevant, but this time around I want to focus on the slower Warlock decks.

First one is Control Warlock, which looks really strong right now. Basically, ladder is now full of two types of decks – Aggro and Combo. And the thing is that Control Warlock can counter both kinds. Against Aggro, it has all sorts of AoEs and survival tools. Heck, sometimes a single Voidlord is good enough to completely stop them, as lots of Aggro builds don’t even run Silence. But the deck also runs Stonehill Defender and Giggling Inventor, making it super annoying to get through to the juicy face.

Against combo decks, on the other hand, you run all sort of ways to disrupt them – Demonic Project, Gnomeferatu and Rin, the First Disciple. While Rin is usually too slow and Gnomeferatu is completely random, Demonic Project is actually quite consistent – like the good old Dirty Rat. The card just straight up wins you against Mecha’thun and Togwaggle Druid, for example, because you can be sure when your opponent has only the combo minions in their hand. It’s a bit worse against Malygos Druid or Shudderwock, but you can still often go for a 50/50 or 33% chance to win, and you have two tries with two copies of the spell.

Sacrificial Pact tech might seem weird, especially two of them, but I’ve been playing with one and it’s been really useful. Right now, all kinds of Warlocks are all over R4-Legend. According to both vS and HSReplay, they have roughly 30% representation on those ranks, peaking up to nearly 40% at Rank 1. And the number seems to grow, especially in Legend. Today, over 50% of the decks I’ve been facing in high-ish Legend were Warlocks.

Not sure how long it will last, but right now when you’re going to ladder, you NEED to expect lots and lots of Warlocks.

But the deck I like even more than Control Warlock is… Even Warlock! While it’s nowhere near as defensive (and thus much worse vs Aggro), it packs a real punch. The deck hasn’t changed much since Witchwood, it’s just packed with tech options. To be honest, some of which you should probably cut depending on what decks you face, but still. You have Sacrificial Pact vs other Warlocks, Demonic Project vs Combo decks, Mossy Horror against Giggling Inventor and Spreading Plague (as well as some other stuff, e.g. works really well vs Shaman), Skulking Geist against Druid’s Naturalize, The Black Knight against… probably in general, but it’s definitely amazing in the mirror.

Demonic Project is the only card previously not used in Even Warlock, but I really like it so far. Maybe it’s just the matter of early meta, but Combo decks are very popular, and it’s nice to have a second win condition if you don’t manage to rush them down. Not to mention that giving them Lord Jaraxxus, them thinking that they can win thanks to it, and then you Sac Pacting it… feels amazing.

Even Warlock was my favorite deck in Witchwood and I’m glad that it’s doing quite well in this expansion so far.

Update: I’m currently Top 100 on EU with that deck. I know that it’s not as good as #1 Legend, but given that I don’t have much time to play, it should be enough prove that the deck works really nicely.

I’ve already featured Malgyos Druid last time, but I really need to stress it out – the deck is very good right now. Year of the Raven is really great for Druid, the class swims in powerful cards. Malygos Druid, a deck that was pretty niche (which doesn’t mean bad) in The Witchwood has got a massive improvement in Boomsday Project thanks to a single card – Flobbidinous Floop. In the context of this build, it’s like a better version of Faceless Manipulator. Ideally, you want to drop Malygos, break your Twig of the World Tree, then drop Floop and combo your opponent down (Swipe + 2x Moonfire deals 36 damage, more than enough to kill most of the opponents). However, you could do the same thing with Faceless already. What makes Floop stand out is the fact that you don’t need to perform the combo in the same turn. Even without Twig (if it’s destroyed, on the bottom of your deck etc.) you can still just drop Malygos one turn, then Floop will be its 4 mana copy next turn. While it’s not AS good as the full combo, Floop + Swipe + 2x Moonfire is still 21 damage. Given that you also run Alexstrasza, it’s often enough to win the game.

Another new card from Boomsday Project is actually Giggling Inventor. The card is so annoying to get through and acts as two extra walls on top of Plague. Assuming only minion trades, your opponent needs 4 hits to get through it, which makes it especially strong against big minions. I remember stalling Tyrantus for 2 turns just because Druid had no way to remove the Taunts. Unlike Spreading Plague, Giggling Inventor can also be used proactively – even after you clear the board or your opponent doesn’t have any minions yet, it’s still a good play.

All in all, multiple pros are getting Malygos Druid to high Legend, and it’s one of the reasons why Warlocks are running Demonic Project (because well, Malygos Druid without Malygos isn’t going to win that many games).

Druid being strong was predictable. Warlock? Yeah, Even & Zoo were already great in Witchwood. But Deathrattle Rogue? That’s something nobody really expected, but it does work so far. I’ve seen dozens of Top 100 Legend climbs with similar builds. I know that I’ve already featured one last time, but this list is a bit different, as it goes for Prince Keleseth instead of Saps, Eviscerates and such (my initial theorycraft included Keleseth too). There are some clear advantages and disadvantages of this kind of approach. Advantages include much higher tempo if you hit Keleseth, and buffing your Egg to 1/4, which means that it’s immediately activated. Disadvantages – it’s obviously worse if you don’t draw Keleseth, and you have to sacrifice some burn (Eviscerate), as well as Cavern Shinyfinder, which lets you draw your weapons more consistently.

The general play style of the deck remains the same – you want to drop your Deathrattles, trigger them multiple times, possibly Carnivorous Cube them and trigger even more. Cube in particular works REALLY well with your Deathrattle triggers, pretty much no matter what you decide to eat. Even eating your 3/3, which might not seem great, means that Necrium Vial becomes a Greater Emerald Spellstone – cool, right? And that’s like the worst case scenario. Cubing Devilsaur, Mechanical Dragon and then triggering it means a massive board flood with lots of big minions. You usually set up lethal unless your opponent plays a big board clear. And of course, the late game Leeroy Jenkins + Carnivorous Cube + second hit of Necrium Blade combo dealing 21 damage, which given how aggressive the deck is, is often enough to kill your opponent.

I’m really curious where the deck goes from now. I feel like the current lists with 2x Vial and 2x Whelp might be too greedy – I would see them cutting some of that late game to play more early options. But that’s how deck building usually goes – people start with a more end-heavy lists and then they become less and less greedy with optimization. I think that the same will happen to Deathrattle Rogue – if it stays as a viable option, of course.

Odd Paladin is yet another Witchwood deck, which got some new tools in Boomsday. In case of Odd Paladin, those tools are Mechs. Players are still trying to find the most optimal version. Some choices, such as Glow-Tron, Mecharoo or Wargear are clear – if you want to run the Mech package, you include those three. But past that? Do you run Nightmare Amalgam? Bronze Gatekeeper? Zilliax?

But I’d say that two Mech-related choices seem most interesting and impactful. First of them is Mechano-Egg. A card that was rated rather poorly before the expansion seems to be performing quite well. Maybe it’s because Silence is still rather uncommon (but probably will be as people start teching after optimizing their lists), but it tends to stick to the board. Then it’s a massive buff magnet – your opponent doesn’t want to kill it, so you just stack Magnetize minions onto it. And if he does decide to kill it, you get an 8/8, so it’s a good deal either way.

Another interesting card is Kangor's Endless Army. On the one hand, if you hit a great revive (especially if you run the Egg deck), then it can be a great finisher. On the other hand, it tends to be a little clunky in less Mech-heavy lists.

There’s still a lot of testing to be done, but from my experience, the decks with a small Mech package, without Egg or Kangor’s work best. Both Egg and Kangor’s are pretty good cards, but maybe more so in some sort of Midrange Mech Paladin rather than the Odd version.

Finally, a first Hunter deck I’ve actually seen in Top 10 Legend this expansion! (probably there were some, I just didn’t see them) BoarControl climbed up there with a Secret Hunter, a rather interesting build going basically all-in on the Secret strategy and utilizing the new Neutral Legendary – Subject 9.

In theory, given the right deck, Subject 9 can be one of the strongest cards in the entire game. 5 mana 4/4 that draws you FIVE cards is insanely powerful. And actually, in this deck it’s a possible scenario. You usually end up drawing 3-4 cards, but 5 happens too. But, drawing Secrets is not enough – some more synergies would be nice.

And of course, there are more synergies. Besides your usual Lesser Emerald Spellstone (which is, by the way, an amazing card and can carry some games), this build also runs… Professor Putricide. The card was pretty overrated back in Knights of the Frozen Throne, but maybe it has finally found a home in Standard deck (I know that some Wild builds were running it already), sadly after Cloaked Huntress has already rotated out. Doubling every Secret is great, because it increases their value immensely. On If you stick it to the board in the late game and then follow up with 2 Secrets, you end up with 2 random ones. And the best thing is that your opponent has absolutely no clue what to play against.

A very interesting aspect of this deck is running only a few minions – 4 different in total. It means that your Stitched Tracker has a very high chance (75%) to discover a specific minion. Since 3 of those minions are one-of, drawing one of them means that you now have 100% chance to discover whatever you want. But the most funny situation happens when you end up with only Stitched Tracker in your deck – you can discover Tracker, which discovers Tracker etc. Infinite value! Sadly, pretty low tempo, because you only end up with 3x 2/2 per turn, but it might be better than nothing while you’re waiting for Deathstalker Rexxar. Which, honestly, shouldn’t be that long between Tracking and thinning your deck with Subject 9 (or two).

Look guys, I seriously don’t know. Can we still call it Miracle Rogue, or is it just Tempo Rogue? Miracle was becoming more and more tempo oriented in the last expansions, and now it has even cut Gadgetzan Auctioneer to run Sprints. I don’t know, I will call it Miracle for now.

Either way, no matter how you call it, this specific build is rather interesting. The card that stands out most is definitely Augmented Elekk. It’s pretty clear that Fal'dorei Strider is a key card in current Miracle builds. While the initial 4/4 body isn’t something to write poems about, it stacks so much tempo potential into your deck. Three 0 mana 4/4’s that don’t even cost you a card is massive (unless they’re stuck at the bottom of your deck, that is). If you could, you would easily run a few more copies of that card. But it’s not possible. Or is it? Augmented Elekk acts as a sort of extra copies of Fal’dorei Strider. If you play it on T3, and follow up with T4 Strider, you end up shuffling 3 extra Spiders into your deck – that’s huge! And actually, 3/4 for 3 are even better stats than 4/4 for 4. Sadly, in order for it to work, it either needs to survive a turn, or you need to play them together, and the second option requires 7 mana. Still, it’s a nice way to shuffle even more free tempo into your deck. I’m not sure if two copies are not too much, but if you run this Miracle Rogue more like a Tempo Rogue, then a 3 mana 3/4 is not the worst play ever regardless of whether you shuffle something or not, especially since your opponent will often do everything to deal with it, making his turn awkward.

In case of this specific list, Giggling Inventor is the second new card. It sort of looks like the new Sludge Belcher – great defensive Neutral 5-drop, which can fit into so many different decks. But unlike Belcher, Giggling Inventor also fits into Aggro decks more, since it has 3 bodies and is super annoying for Control decks to clear. In a faster meta, Rogue sort of needs that kind of extra defense, as the deck is really prone to getting rushed down – between lack of defensive mechanics and using Hero Power to hit minions a lot, Miracle Rogues just die. So forcing your opponent to (quite often) waste 3-4 hits to get through your Giggling can be important.

Just like always, this kind of deck probably won’t become mainstream, but a handful of people will hit high Legend ranks with it over and over again.

And at least, most likely the weirdest creation on this list. I’ll be honest with you – I’ve tried playing it and it just didn’t work for me (I think that my score was 2-7, although I had some really close games), but it seems that those guys are nailing it. They hit #1 Legend twice and that enough is a reason to put the deck on this list.

This is basically a Shudderwock deck, but kind of in a way that I imagined it will work initially. Instead of going for the Lifedrinker combo, you play a Midrange deck with strong Battlecries, then Shudderwock acts as a finisher. You don’t bounce it back or play multiple times, but a single Shudderwock is already massive. It clones itself (Saronite Chain Gang), buffs minions in your deck (Prince Keleseth), destroys your opponent’s weapon (Gluttonous Ooze), steals something (Mind Control Tech), summons 2x Annoy-o-Tron (Giggling Inventor), buffs adjacent minions (Fungalmancer)… It can also deal AoE damage (Hagatha the Witch, it can be good against Aggro, but it’s not always positive), can Evolve your board twice (Thrall, Deathseer) or might as well perform a random Kalimos, Primal Lord effect. All in all, once you get to Turn 9 and drop him, it usually does A LOT of stuff and if your opponent can’t answer a huge tempo turn like that, he loses. That’s the basic idea.

But, you can also win through a solid curve and Evolves. The thing is, when they see your initial turns, they usually expect a Shudderwock Shaman and might put their guard down, waste some cards they would keep otherwise etc. But then you drop Corridor Creeper and Evolve it, and they might no longer have a way to deal with it.

I’d like to hear your experience with the deck. Did it work for you? Maybe I was doing something wrong, or faced bad matchups. But I’m all in for a non-combo Shudderwock deck, so I hope that it will work.

]]>https://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/standout-boomsday-project-decks-from-up-to-day-3/feed/16Tavern Brawl A New Year Bashhttps://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/tavern-brawl-a-new-year-bash/
https://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/tavern-brawl-a-new-year-bash/#commentsWed, 08 Aug 2018 16:11:53 +0000https://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/?p=119399This week's Tavern Brawl is a coop brawl called A New Year Bash! Work together with your partner to decorate the tavern for a celebration. Each turn you can use the amount of mana you have towards your hero power until you progress to 25 decorations. After that the Pinata Golem spawns on the board [...]

]]>This week’s Tavern Brawl is a coop brawl called A New Year Bash! Work together with your partner to decorate the tavern for a celebration. Each turn you can use the amount of mana you have towards your hero power until you progress to 25 decorations. After that the Pinata Golem spawns on the board and you will have to deal damage with it using minions and your hero power to defeat it!

Quick Information

Reward: 1 Classic Pack

Format: Wild

Create Your Own Deck: No

Official Description for Tavern Brawl A Brawl of Fire and Ice

The party is here! Work together with another player to decorate the tavern and kickoff a New Year’s party!

Tavern Brawl Chalkboard

]]>https://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/tavern-brawl-a-new-year-bash/feed/28Standout Boomsday Project Decks From Day 1https://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/standout-boomsday-project-decks-from-day-1/
https://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/standout-boomsday-project-decks-from-day-1/#commentsWed, 08 Aug 2018 16:03:23 +0000https://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/?p=119303The Boomsday Project - second expansion of Year of the Raven was released nearly 24 hours ago. Mechs with Magnetize keyword, Project cards, Omega cards are only some of the themes of Boomsday Project. The ladder is full of interesting experiment decks. But are they any good? How much the meta has changed compared to [...]

]]>The Boomsday Project – second expansion of Year of the Raven was released nearly 24 hours ago. Mechs with Magnetize keyword, Project cards, Omega cards are only some of the themes of Boomsday Project. The ladder is full of interesting experiment decks. But are they any good? How much the meta has changed compared to The Witchwood? Did we already see any huge surprises, or maybe the new Tier 1 decks are yet to be discovered?

Since yesterday, I’ve been testing a variety of decks and playing against even more of them. Besides playing, I’ve spent most of my time watching pro players’ streams, trying to find some of the best Boomsday Project decks so far. Below, I’ll list some of the lists that already caught my attention. Just like every new expansion, remember that the early meta is very chaotic and it might look completely different in a few days. Decks are chosen based on my ladder experience (going from R4 to Legend), watching the steamers & pros, talking with other high ranked players and early statistics from sites like HSReplay.net or Vicious Syndicate.

These decks are only example lists – meta is adjusting very quickly and more optimized builds might be out at the time you’re reading it!

Just like players have suspected before the expansion, Druid is doing quite well after the launch. It has got some of the strongest cards in Boomsday Project, to the point where it can’t even run all of them, because you would need to remove other very strong cards to fit them. I feel like Togwaggle / Mill Druid has seen the biggest improvement thanks to the new cards. This is the list I’ve been running today and hit Legend with 7-2 score – my only two loses were against Odd Mech Warrior with Beryllium Nullifier (which, funnily, despite getting terrible reviews basically hard-counters this deck, as you have no way to remove it once it’s Magnetized into something). The deck is great against Zoo and Odd Paladin because of Spreading Plague and AoE, and it’s great against slow decks because of your late game combo.

When I first featured King Togwaggle Druid in one of the first The Witchwood deck compilations, I’ve said that it has lots of potential, but is mostly held back by the fact that weapon destruction simply counters your main game plan. However, thanks to Dreampetal Florist, it’s no longer the case. You don’t even need your weapon – you just need to hit a single discount on either Togwaggle or Azalina Soulthief and your combo is set and it’s no longer possible to counter it (well, technically Warlock can with Demonic Project, but it’s not Neutral like Dirty Rat was).

Other than that, the deck benefits heavily from the new Biology Project. It adds more ramp consistency, and you want to get to your cycle cards (especially UI) as quickly as possible. Sometimes it’s also a good T1 play – the deck’s early game was always very awkward, consisting mostly of Hero Powering + passing unless you hit your ramp curve perfectly. With this card, you can skip the early game and jump right into the mid game. While Aggro decks can also take advantage of it and flood the board, it’s risky for them to go all in (or else they lose to Spreading Plague) and they run out of cards much faster than you do. Them skipping their 1-2-3 curve can be good if you have some way to deal with a potential flood. Of course, whether Project is good or not really depends on your hand – if you don’t have cycle or answers for the Aggro’s board, you might want to not give them that kind of early advantage. Unlike other ramp cards, which are pretty straightforward, there is actually some skill involved when it comes to Biology Project’s timing.

All in all, I expect Togwaggle Druid to be one of the key decks in the upcoming meta.

Similarly to Togwaggle Druid, Malygos version has also got a solid boost. Biology Project is strong for the same reasons as above, so I won’t repeat that. But unlike Togwaggle, which is pretty much set on the Dreampetal Florist (because Twig doesn’t really give any real advantage), the best Malygos Druid build isn’t decided yet. On the one hand, Florist is harder to counter. On the other hand, Malygos builds run more minions, such as Alexstrasza and the new Flobbidinous Floop, which makes Florist less consistent (because Malygos is still generally the best target).

Talking about the new cards, however, Floop is amazing in Malygos Druid. Not only it acts as a cheaper Faceless Manipulator for the sake of the combo, the fact that it can be played the turn after, when Malygos is usually already dead, makes it a very impactful card. Even if opponent counters your Twig, you can still drop Malygos, let it die, and then play Floop’s copy next turn and still have 6 mana to work with (Swipe + 2x Moonfire is 21 damage then, 22 with Hero Power, not the best combo ever, but a nice fail-safe).

What might be surprising to the general playerbase is that Juicy Psychmelon, the memed “cheaper Sprint that tutors”, the card that was going to break the game… is just not necessary. While some Florist builds do run it, it’s not particularly amazing, at least in Standard.

But, the two slow, combo Druid builds above are not all that class has to offer. Token Druid, another prominent build from pre-Boomsday, got a slight upgrade. While again, the best build wasn’t found out yet, the most popular (and highest win rate) version runs exactly two new cards – Floop's Glorious Gloop and Giggling Inventor. I can’t credit the original creator, as I found it very early into the expansion on HSReplay, and then faced it multiple times on the ladder (as well as played some games with it).

Basically, in the right scenario, Gloop is like an ultra-Innervate. When playing against other board flood decks, there are turns in which you can easily get 5+ mana from it. For example, Zoo floods the board, you play Spreading Plague, they do some trading. Next turn, you play Gloop, Swipe and trade a bunch of minions. One game I was at 9 mana, I’ve played Gloop, Swiped, traded stuff and then went up to 10 so I could Ultimate Infestation (and then I could also play Spellstone for a good measure, but there was no target left). Situations like that happen quite often when you play against Zoo, Odd Paladin or in the mirrors. But you should be able to get some value out of it in pretty much every game – the only issue is that the card is situational. Unlike Innervate, which could be used in the early game, it’s more of a mid/late game card.

But, Giggling Inventor is probably even a better addition. It serves a few purposes. It’s a good defense when you need it (tanking 4 hits is often lots of healing), and another way to flood the board. Even Giggling Inventor alone can be scary if opponent leaves it on the board, because let’s say 2x Savage Roar turns 4 damage into 20 damage. It’s especially important against reactive decks, where Spreading Plague was underperforming – having two more ways to develop often means that your opponent runs out of AoEs to answer everything, and then you deliver your massive burst turn.

Other than that, the general game plan is basically the same. Power of the Wild was cut in order to fit those, but I think that it was a good decision – as much as Plague + PotW was sometimes the winning play, having a nice Turn 5 play if you don’t draw Nourish is probably even more important.

Some players, such as RayC, have been experimenting with the Treant version too. I don’t have much to say about it, as I’ve faced it only once, but if you have more experience, you can share it in the comments.

Another deck, which was good before the expansion and is still good. Odd Paladin, which became the #1 Paladin archetype after Call to Arms (and thus Even Paladin) nerf, is also looking quite well this expansion. Most of the players are experimenting with the Mechs right now. Glow-Tron is obviously an amazing card, but it’s basically a Dire Mole if you can’t use the Magnetize effect, because you have no other Mechs. But luckily, there are some solid Odd Mechs to run, such as Mecharoo and Wargear.

Depending on the player, the Mech theme is pushed with different force. For example, Janetzky’s list features only a handful of Mechs. On the other hand, Zalae was experimenting with a Mech-heavy list featuring Kangor's Endless Army. You can find his list here. It’s probably too early to tell which direction is right, but it’s already clear that Odd Paladin has got a lot of new tools.

Deathrattle Rogue was a point of many theorycrafts before the expansion’s launch, but it was probably too much to expect that it will actually work. However, Egg Hunter has proven already that triggering Devilsaur Egg lots and lots of times can be powerful. In Boomsday Project, Rogue has got two new cards that can do exactly that – Necrium Blade and Necrium Vial. The first one is a rather standard 3 mana weapon (3/2), but has a very powerful Deathrattle. If you have Egg on the board, it could basically read “Deathrattle: Summon a 5/5”, which would obviously be broken. Even better – with Mechanical Whelp on the board, it summons you a 7/7. Necrium Vial, while way more costly than Play Dead, triggers twice, something that can’t be underestimated, especially since Rogue has access to Preparation. Getting 2x 5/5 for 2 mana on Turn 4, right after dropping Egg, can sometimes win you the game on the spot.

This build is like a new take on Tempo Rogue. It has quite a similar play style, despite being a bit slower – you want to be aggressive and make mid game tempo swings, and then finish your opponent with a burst. However, unlike Tempo Rogue, this deck can really talk about the burst. Thanks to the Leeroy Jenkins + Carnivorous Cube combo, you’re able to deal 21 damage just like that (Leeroy + Cube + weapon hit + 2 more Leeroys). However, if for some reason it’s not enough and your opponent survives, then you still have a massive board. Your opponent might be too busy killing 6/2’s that he won’t be able to deal with the Cube – and then Necrium Vial gives you extra 24 damage out of nowhere.

While the deck is definitely not optimized yet, it looks quite interesting, and I’ve seen at least a few players having solid runs with different versions. I wouldn’t call it a “metabreaker”, but I think that it has a chance to survive in some form.

Another deck getting quite a lot of support is Even Shaman. For quite some time, it was considered one of the best decks in The Witchwood, but it eventually fell out of favor, and Shaman players have switched over to Shudderwock version. Tom’s build runs three new cards, one of which really surprised me.

First one is Menacing Nimbus, which is just a solid 2-drop. 2/2 stats, cycles itself. Not much to talk about – just an okay card. Then, we have Thunderhead, which can be MVP in the right deck. While you can’t combo him with cards such as Lightning Bolt or Voltaic Burst in Even build, Tom has decided to run two activators – Zap! and Stormforged Axe. Thunderhead, while having a below average body, becomes one of the best 4-drops in the game with just a single activation. The Sparks it summons combo really well with the deck, particularly with Knife Juggler and attack buffs.

And finally – a card that I’ve seen being theorycrafted about in Even Shaman, which I didn’t think will work – Arcane Dynamo. Given that Shaman has only five 5 + mana spells right now, you have a 60% chance to discover Bloodlust, which would be absolutely broken in Even Shaman for obvious reasons. Other spells you can get aren’t that bad either, especially The Storm Bringer, which can turn a board full of Totems / small tokens into random Legendaries. I’ve played around with the card for a bit and while not the best, it’s a great way to take advantage of having a solid board. The main problem with Arcane Dynamo are very weak stats – after all, paying 6 mana to get a 3/4 minion (stats of 3-drop) is painful. However, it looks like Shaman can handle that kind of tempo loss, especially in slower matchups, where the deck is ahead in tempo most of the time anyway.

Even Shaman looks pretty scary, even more so than it did in Witchwood.

During my yesterday’s and today’s Legend climb, nearly 50% of my matchups (R4 -> Legend) were Zoo Warlocks. I don’t know how it looks around the other ranks, but different Zoo versions are basically all over the ladder. And for a good reason – the deck is absolutely powerful right now. It has seen a massive comeback roughly a month ago, when someone discovered Heal version of the deck. Zoo Warlock’s play rate has increased from around 2% to nearly 15% (Ranks 4-1) over the course of a week.

Boomsday Project has brought more good news to Zoo fans – a lot of new cards to test out. Starting with the Legendary spell – The Soularium – which can get massive value in the mid/late game, through the Soul Infusion + Doubling Imp combo putting lots of stats on the board for just 4 mana, up to the wall of Giggling Inventor used by some of the builds.

Right now, you can find lots and lots of different versions on the ladder. Some run Keleseth, some don’t. Some run new Legendary spell, others don’t. Some use Leeroy Jenkins, others Doomguard. There are also builds with or without Despicable Dreadlord. It will probably take at least a few days to figure out the strongest version, but at this point it’s pretty certain that Zoo will be a part of the meta in one form or the other.

However, as much as Zoo being strong was possible to predict, most of the players didn’t really see Mecha'thun working. I also dismissed it as a meme card, but it looks like some of the classes (especially Druid and Warlock) can activate the win condition quite easily. The main problem is getting to the end of the deck, but both builds have found a way to do it efficiently. This time around I’m going to feature the Warlock, not Druid, because I’ve seen more people having success with it, that said both versions might actually be viable.

When it comes to Warlock’s combo, it’s quite simple. All you need to do is discount Mecha’thun twice with Galvanizers. Then you have enough mana to play Mecha’thun + Bloodbloom + Cataclysm on the same turn. Since Cataclysm discards your entire hand and kills Mecha’thun, his effect activates, winning you the game as soon as you hit fatigue. Of course, hitting fatigue against the flood of Zoo Warlocks and Odd Paladins isn’t easier thing ever, but the deck is quite well equipped to deal with those. Between AoE removal, healing and Taunts, it can withstand the pressure, and Warlock’s natural cycle coupled with a few more card draws is enough to get to the bottom of your deck quite quickly.

Of course, Mecha’thun builds are still in their infancy. Do we go for more cycle? Or maybe we need more survival? Those questions will heavily depend on the actual meta, but the fact that you can trigger Mecha’thun’s effect quite consistently already makes it scary. After all, it’s the best combo win condition you can imagine – you just kill your opponent and that’s it. Just like other combo decks it will obviously face many problems – getting rushed down by Aggro, burning combo pieces, counter cards (like Demonic Project I’ve already mentioned) etc. but they might be a surprising part of the meta, just like not many expected Shudderwock Shaman to work seriously after seeing its initial win rates.

As a honorable mention, I’m putting the Dog’s Topsy Turvy Priest (not sure how to call it honestly). Right now, its variations are the LOWEST win rate decks on the ladder, no matter what rank you’re looking at. The most popular version has a whooping 27.2% win rate at the time I’m writing this. It’s so bad and yet it’s so good. I really wonder whether the win rate is so low only because players have absolutely no idea how the combo works, how to pull it off etc. or whether it’s actually a bad deck by itself too. It’s the most complicated combo turn Hearthstone ever had, maybe outside of some Patron Warrior lethal puzzles.

The combo actually gets pretty easy and obvious to pull off, but the fact that you need so many pieces, you need to play them in the right order, on the right minions etc. makes it absolutely counter-intuitive. My first two times I actually managed to gather all combo pieces – first time I misplayed and wasted Vivid Nightmare on Radiant Elemental when I only had one, and second game I ran out of time. I barely managed to pull it off on the third try (which was like 8th game, because other times I died before I got all of the pieces).

For those of you who still haven’t seen it – here’s how the combo looks like in practice (it’s a VoD from the combo turn during one of the many, many games Dog played with this deck). As you can see, if you do it correctly, you should be able to OTK your opponent no matter how much Armor he has, and even if he’s hidden behind Taunts.

I’m quite sure that the version Dog was playing (which he changed many times during his stream) is not the most optimal one, and a new, better one will be found. Will it be good enough? Hard to say. But it’s one of those decks for which global stats will be pointless – it will always be underperforming just because of how complicated the combo is.

]]>https://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/standout-boomsday-project-decks-from-day-1/feed/3The Boomsday Project Deck Lists – Deck Ideas, Pro & Streamer Decks! (Live Updates)https://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/the-boomsday-project-deck-lists/
https://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/the-boomsday-project-deck-lists/#commentsTue, 07 Aug 2018 15:45:06 +0000https://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/?p=115321Our Boomsday Project Deck Lists post will have a full roundup of decks played by pros and streamers. While we wait for the actual launch, I'm compiling a list of our in-depth theorycraft deck guides. You'll also find a list of decks theorycrafted by pro players, so you can get be ready to go on [...]

]]>Our Boomsday Project Deck Lists post will have a full roundup of decks played by pros and streamers. While we wait for the actual launch, I’m compiling a list of our in-depth theorycraft deck guides. You’ll also find a list of decks theorycrafted by pro players, so you can get be ready to go on August 7th when the expansion drops!

As more and more decks are added to the list, we will be moving over some of the higher performing lists to our Best Boomsday Project Decks post!

HSTD Boomsday Project Theorycraft Deck Guides

We’re working hard putting together a bunch of guides that should help you know what decks are on the way and how to best play them! Some of these might not end up being top of the meta, but we’re confident that they will see some play early on.

Warrior

]]>https://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/the-boomsday-project-deck-lists/feed/24The Boomsday Project Inn-vitational!https://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/the-boomsday-project-inn-vitational/
https://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/the-boomsday-project-inn-vitational/#commentsMon, 06 Aug 2018 19:24:44 +0000https://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/?p=117938Watch some of your favorite streamers and pro players compete in the first official Blizzard tournament where players can use The Boomsday Project's cards! [boomsday_links] There are explosions and uproars aplenty in Boom Labs, but it’s about to get a little more chaotic with The Boomsday Project Inn-vitational, the first tournament [...]

Helpful The Boomsday Project Links

There are explosions and uproars aplenty in Boom Labs, but it’s about to get a little more chaotic with The Boomsday Project Inn-vitational, the first tournament where The Boomsday Project’s cards will see competitive play.

We previously saw North America and Europe defend the Witchwood. Now, some of Taiwan and South Korea’s finest players are joining the fray to bring you some of the most spectacular decks and plays of the new meta! (And yes, world champion tom60229 is in this brawl, too!)

Players & Talent

The twelve competitors will be split into four teams of three. Competing in The Boomsday Project Inn-vitational are:

Taiwan

South Korea

Format

While it’s true that too many cooks can spoil the broth, the good employees of Boom Labs theorize that the more scientific hands in an experiment, the better! Instead of each tournament round being played by just one player (as might be the norm of other less…ambitious scientific institutions), The Boomsday Project Inn-vitational will have the different teams take on each best-of-three round together!

However every project undertaken at Boom Labs always needs an assistant (or two, or eight). Each deck in the tournament will have a minimum of 8 cards from The Boomsday Project Inn-vitational.

Keen observers like yourself will also be interested to know that the tournament will be played in Round Robin format, which will allow you to record any and all interactions and/or discrepancies in the tournament.

Any scientist worth their salt will know that thorough experimentation is the order of the day when you want to figure out the best decks for the meta! But in case you happen to be indisposed while we conduct The Boomsday Project Inn-vitational, you’ll be pleased to know that we’ll be sharing all these inventive new decks with you as early as TKTKTK.

Tournament Broadcast

The Boomsday Project Inn-vitational will air on the PlayHearthstone Twitch channel on August 10, 2018, at 9 a.m PDT. Watch the stream below, or head over to our Twitch channel to be part of chat!

Check out our Fireside Gatherings celebration campaign if you’ve got a regular Fireside Gathering going or you simply want to celebrate The Boomsday Project’s launch with some friends. Remember that this is also your last chance to pick up The Boomsday Project pack pre-purchase—read on to find out how!

]]>https://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/the-boomsday-project-inn-vitational/feed/1Best Boomsday Decks – The Top Deck Lists for the Boomsday Meta!https://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/best-boomsday-project-decks-the-top-deck-lists-for-the-boomsday-meta/
https://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/best-boomsday-project-decks-the-top-deck-lists-for-the-boomsday-meta/#respondMon, 06 Aug 2018 17:21:36 +0000https://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/?p=117729It's time to take a look at the best decks from The Boomsday Project Expansion. While this post is a bit early, we will be updating it as soon as we notice any decks start to take shape and do well on the ladder! We will be covering decks for every class: Druid, Hunter, Mage, [...]

]]>It’s time to take a look at the best decks from The Boomsday Project Expansion. While this post is a bit early, we will be updating it as soon as we notice any decks start to take shape and do well on the ladder! We will be covering decks for every class: Druid, Hunter, Mage, Paladin, Priest, Rogue, Shaman, Warlock and Warrior! This post will be frequently updated as the meta takes shape, so make sure to check back often.

While The Boomsday Project won’t have the impact that The Witchwood had on the meta due to the rotation, we’re expecting to see a shakeup in some of the popular lists on the ladder. With what appears to be a fairly powerful 135 new cards heading into the game, don’t be surprised to see mechs infiltrating your gameboard. The Magnetic keyword is poised to be a standout mechanic for the near future. However, we’ve been wrong before, so we’ll have to wait and see how the meta shapes up!

If you want a look at all of the decks from the expansion from pros & streamers, check out our Boomsday Project Decks post!

Updates

8/13/18: Added more lists, edited the post a bit.

8/11/18: Added Secret Hunter, Odd Mech Paladin, and more!

Added multiple new decks (AGAIN)!

Added Sjow’s Control Mech Warrior to the list.

Added an updated version of Token Druid to the list.

Added an updated version of Even Shaman to the list.

The Best Boomsday Project Deck Lists

Here’s where we are listing all of the best performing decks in the early meta. Keep in mind that just because a deck is doing well early on does not mean it will continue to do so. There’s always at least one deck that over-performs early on and immediately falls to the back of the pack as decks become more refined. This just means you need to be careful when crafting if you are on a limited budget, and keep an eye on this page as we will be rotating decks in-and-out as we figure out what works the best!

Best Boomsday Project Druid Decks

Druid has some powerful decks already, and early looks at the expansion seem to place it very ahead of other classes. This is due to the potential power of Flobbidinous Floop and Juicy Psychmelon, which look like they will fit very well into the already strong Malygos Druid.

Boomsday Lists

Druid was thought to be pretty favored as one of the stronger classes heading into the expansion. Malygos Druid seemingly got the most help with cards like Biology Project and Flobbidinous Floop. We’ll see if the meta stays in the classes favor.

Looks like both of Druid’s strong option prior to the expansion release are likely to continue to see play. Token Druid didn’t need much help, but Floop’s Glorious Gloop and Giggling Inventor are currently making the cut.

Popular Druid Archetypes

Best Boomsday Project Hunter Decks

Hunter has been plugging along pretty well, it doesn’t have top tier decks, but it does have nice options that work well on the ladder. The Boomsday Project brings some interesting options for the class. It got Bomb Toss and Fireworks Tech which could push it back into its very familiar aggro past, but could also go a hybrid mech/deathrattle route as well.

Boomsday Lists

Looks like it’s time for the throwback to old school Hearthstone with Deathrattle Hunter. It’s a pretty competitive list, that largely takes the core from the Egg Hunter that was popular in The Witchwood.

Popular Hunter Archetypes

Best Boomsday Project Mage Decks

Mage is a class that’s struggling a bit, but has had a couple of options prior to the release of The Boomsday Project. The upcoming expansion gives it a potential new look with all of the Spell Damage synergy the class is getting. Hand Mage also has potential. Astromancer is a very interesting card, it just depends if Mage can survive long enough to get deep enough in the game to utilize it.

Boomsday Lists

Tempo Mage is off to a good start in The Boomsday Project meta. It always seems to hang around as a solid list and slowly drops into the mid-tiers. We’ll see how strong this particular list remains as the meta matures.

If you like a more grindy control style of list then Big Spell Mage might be down your alley. It didn’t get a whole lot from The Boomsday Project, but it got enough to keep the deck going into this new meta currently.

Popular Mage Archetypes

Best Boomsday Project Paladin Decks

Paladin had multiple dominant decks prior to the nerfs that settled down the meta in The Witchwood meta. Now it’s reliant on Odd Paladin to carry the class currently, but thankfully for the class it is one of the best decks in the game prior to the new expansion. Boomsday seems to be steering the class towards a mech based deck, but that doesn’t mean you’ll want to ditch your Odd cards right away. A lot of these mechs can fit into the odd archetype, especially the strong 1-drop Glow-Tron.

Popular Paladin Archetypes

Best Boomsday Project Priest Decks

Priest is in a precarious decision leading into The Boomsday Project expansion. It’s kind of hanging on by a thread with Mind Blast Priest giving it one of its few meta worthy decks. It looks like there’s two potential ways you can play Priest with the new cards: Cloning & Deathrattle. It’s hard to say if either is going to be viable, but with the long awaited Quest Priest hoping to make a splash, there’s potential that the archetype finally has enough cards to make it work.

Boomsday Lists

Mecha’thun is surprisingly pretty decent so far in The Boomsday Project meta. While this could just be because of the early expansion glow, it just might be good enough to stick around for the long haul.

It looks like Priest has got access to a new, incredibly powerful combo. It’s a completely new way to play the class, and not a straightfoward combo, so it might take some time to optimize it, but Dog has already proven how powerful the combo might be in the right hands.

Popular Priest Archetypes

Best Boomsday Project Rogue Decks

Rogue had a good early meta in The Witchwood. It had Quest Rogue and Odd Rogue with a sprinkling of the everlasting Miracle Rogue. After the nerfs to Quest Rogue, it was carried mostly by Miracle for a while. However, once the meta shift again, Odd Rogue came back and was one of the top decks leading into the new expansion. Boomsday is bringing the class a lot of interesting tools. Myra's Unstable Element is just a crazy card, and I’m looking forward to seeing what players can do with it. There’s also the combo potential behind Pogo-Hopper that should be exciting to watch unfold in the early days of the meta.

Unexpectedly, Deathrattle Rogue seems to be doing quite well this expansion. The deck’s new ways to trigger some Deathrattles multiple times give it a steady mid game tempo advantage, and the late game Leeroy + Cube combo adds a solid finisher.

Odd Rogue was a very popular and strong list going into The Boomsday Project. It continues to be popular now and has gained Myra’s Unstable Element which gives it a way to refill its hand in the later stages of the game.

Popular Rogue Archetypes

Best Boomsday Project Shaman Decks

Shaman had an up and down meta with The Witchwood. It started out hot with Shudderwock Shaman exploding onto the scene in the early days of the expansion, but it did not last and other decks quickly took over. However, it had a pretty consistent deck with Even Shaman, and Shudderwock even came back into the fold after the nerfs! Shaman had some luck with aggro decks in the past, so seeing Electra Stormsurge has raised some eyebrows and turned some eyes towards the powerful burn spells like Lightning Bolt and Lava Burst. The class also got some seemingly strong Elementals, so don’t be surprised to see players experimenting with that tribe.

Boomsday Lists

A theme from The Boomsday Project so far is that strong decks in the previous meta are just able to add a few new pieces and get stronger. Even Shaman is no different, but we’ll see if it continues to be strong in the upcoming days.

Don’t let the negative votes on this deck list fool you. It seems pretty strong and Crane used this list to take the #1 Legend spot on the ladder. This is a bit more minion heavy with an Elemental slant version of Shudderwock.

Popular Shaman Archetypes

Best Boomsday Project Warlock Decks

Warlock was very powerful leading into The Witchwood expansion. It had Cubelock, one of the top decks in the meta at the time, and only got stronger when the expansion was released. Once the mid-expansion nerfs hit, Cubelock was dropped down in power and the class had to move onto the Handlock styled Even Warlock. Zoolock, on the other-hand, was floating around in the mid-tier like it usually does. That was until it got a big boost due to a heal version of the deck catching on in popularity and ending up near the top of the meta going into The Boomsday Project.

Control Warlock is sneaking back into the meta, and Meati’s version was doing work for him on the legend ladder. It doesn’t use much from The Boomsday Project, so if you already had the core cards, you won’t need much else to get this deck to work.

While it’s hard to really tell how powerful a new deck like that is, the fact that a Mecha’thun, card that was seen as merely a meme by most, actually works is already surprising. We’ll see how the deck will defend itself against a more stable meta, but it’s doing quite alright so far.

Popular Warlock Archetypes

Best Boomsday Project Warrior Decks

Warrior has had a rocky road leading up to the new expansion. While it has some a semi-decent deck with Quest Taunt Warrior, it doesn’t have a whole lot of other options. The class could really use some help in the new expansion. It is lucky enough to be the class that gets the one hero cards from the expansion with Dr. Boom, Mad Genius. Whether or not this will be enough to pull it out of the bottom tiers remains to be seen.

Sjow reported some solid numbers on his way up to top 20 legend with this Control Mech Warrior. Hopefully it is here to stay, because Warrior was struggling to find too much to be happy about in the last expansion.

Popular Warrior Archetypes

]]>https://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/best-boomsday-project-decks-the-top-deck-lists-for-the-boomsday-meta/feed/0Boomsday Brings in New Token Deck Support, but Are Tokens Any Good?https://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/boomsday-brings-in-new-token-deck-support-but-are-tokens-any-good/
https://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/boomsday-brings-in-new-token-deck-support-but-are-tokens-any-good/#commentsMon, 06 Aug 2018 15:58:08 +0000https://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/?p=116899Tokens have been powerful in Hearthstone several times during the game's history. The power of [card_link name="Imp-losion"] carried Zoo decks for years, and even simple Shaman totems were a scary sight once upon a time when [card_link name="Thunder Bluff Valiant"]s roamed the lands. However, token support was gradually weakened, to the point that [card_link name="Ravenous Pterrordax"] had a [...]

]]>Tokens have been powerful in Hearthstone several times during the game’s history. The power of Imp-losion carried Zoo decks for years, and even simple Shaman totems were a scary sight once upon a time when Thunder Bluff Valiants roamed the lands. However, token support was gradually weakened, to the point that Ravenous Pterrordax had a hard time making ends meet in Journey to Un’Goro as it simply could not find suitable food.

There are still plenty of token-generating cards in the game, but most of them are simply not good enough. Cards such as Fiendish Circle simply do not have what it takes to make token decks great. It’s the good token stuff I’m talking about, it has been in short supply in the past couple of years.

The Witchwood brought some token decks back to the meta. Druid received Wispering Woods and Paladin re-discovered its board-flooding Hero Power with Baku the Mooneater. Even Zoolock found a way back to the game, although more through the power of Happy Ghoul than actual tokens. Amidst all of this, Fungalmancer has found a spot in multiple classes, including ones that do not really run many tokens as such.

With the current meta focused on battles on the board, tokens are always an interesting option, and The Boomsday Project is introducing several token-generating cards into the game. Are they good enough to build new decks around?

Token-Generating Cards in Boomsday

We will soon have a chance to find out in practice which cards survive in battle. There is no lack of candidates in Boomsday! Most classes receive potential token support in their class cards, and the neutral cards that support tokens take the game to the next level.

Most of these tokens are Mechs, too, so all the Magnetic buffs can be applied to them to take a token board from wide to tall in an instant. Add in some Wargear for your tokens and you’re all good to go!

Old buffs should not be forgotten either. There has generally not been enough tokens around for many buff cards to shine, but Fungalmancer has already found its way to the meta, and Bonemare and Boisterous Bard are still there waiting for the right archetype to surface.

Are all of these cards good enough to make it? Not necessarily, but the sheer abundance of options means that there is plenty of tinkering you can do to build a Treant deck. Could Druid even come out of this with two viable token archetypes? Possible, even if unlikely, as the more powerful one tends to crowd out the weaker one, even if the power difference is small.

Hunter and Goblin Bombs

Sometimes tokens do not even have to have attack to be scary. Hunter has the means to summon some Goblin Bombs on the board and buff them up with Magnetic minions and spells. In the case of Boommaster Flark, there can be plenty of those bombs around whereas a simple Bomb Toss in the early game can leave a ticking time bomb up on the battlefield.

Mage and Unexpected Results

Mage can also summon multiple minions in a turn, although they are of slightly bigger variety, thanks to Unexpected Results and Astromancer. Add in Vex Crow from The Witchwood – a card that saw some play, but was generally not considered good enough to be run in Tempo Mage – and some kind of spell-and-token galore starts to look like an option. Violet Teacher has not usually been associated with Mage, but it could have something to contribute to such a deck too.

However, Mage lacks means to buff up its tokens, and as they are generally not Mechs, Magnetic does not help there.

Paladin and Baku

Paladin does not receive any real token support, its new cards are more directed towards buffing up Mechs. That said, Odd Paladin Hero Power is already the ultimate token creator and Lost in the Jungle, Level Up!, and Vinecleaver provide lots of support. Perhaps some of the new Mech stuff finds a role in the deck, or the deck carries on as a separate archetype from Mech Paladin.

Rogue and Deathrattles

Blightnozzle Crawler does not quite summon two minions at once, as the second one comes from a Deathrattle. However, Rogue gets plenty of tools to play with Deathrattles in Necrium Vial, Necrium Blade, and Myra Rotspring. Combined with a selection of Deathrattle cards that summon minions, Rogue too could be flooding the board in no time – if Fal'dorei Strider is not already good enough for you for that purpose.

Shaman and Elementals

Some of the scariest token support cards are coming for Shaman. Thunderhead is the type of token generator that commands immediate attention, and Electra Stormsurge can be used to create wide boards, among other things. Voltaic Burst gives access to some quick token generation as well. Finally, the daring token enthusiast may decide to go for tokens no more with The Storm Bringer and turn that token board into a Legendary board.

Combine these with good old Fire Fly and the rest of the Elemental crew, and Elemental Shaman may end up looking very different in Boomsday than it has for the past year. Perhaps it even chooses to embrace its Bloodlust roots or go for some The Runespear for surprise buffs (OK, that is unlikely, but possible).

Warlock in the Zoo

The current Zoo builds rely on the Warlock Hero Power a lot as there are not that many suitable token-generating cards. With Doubling Imp and Omega Agent joining the team, there may be some more tokens available in the future. Failing that, The Soularium makes sure that card draw is even less of an issue.

Are Tokens Good Enough?

In The Witchwood, Odd Paladin, Even Shaman, and Zoo Warlock ended up as some of the top decks in the game. Hearthstone is a tempo-based game, and aggressive strategies are typically some of the most effective.

In The Boomsday Project, several classes gain access to formidable board-flooding strategies similar to the ones that have proven effective in The Witchwood. Alas, there are still some choices to be made between going tall and going wide: if the meta has plenty of high-health Mechs with Taunt and Shudderwock Shamans, Control Warriors, and Control Warlocks with tons of removal, token boards may not find a way to push through.

Then again, looking at the success of Odd Paladin, it has succeeded despite board clears as it can simply rebuild again and again until the opponent fails to find an answer. Token decks can also make use of Magnetic Mechs themselves and buff up their tokens into major threats.

The board-based strategies of Paladin, Warlock, and Druid are not going anywhere. Paladin receives an alternative route with Mechs and Druid with Treants, whereas Warlock receives new tools to complement its existing strategy. Hunter and Shaman receive plenty of new tools to take new approaches to board control.

The only new area-of-effect damage tool is Shaman’s Beakered Lightning, so the toolkits to fight against tokens do not improve in any significant way. It looks like the field is all set up for a ton of battles for board control in The Boomsday Project!

]]>https://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/boomsday-brings-in-new-token-deck-support-but-are-tokens-any-good/feed/4Discover in Boomsday – What Can You Expect to Find in This Standard Format?https://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/discover-in-boomsday-what-can-you-expect-to-find-in-this-standard-format/
https://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/discover-in-boomsday-what-can-you-expect-to-find-in-this-standard-format/#commentsSat, 04 Aug 2018 18:02:04 +0000https://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/?p=115969The Discover mechanic has been an awesome addition to Hearthstone, and we've sang praises to it before. It is so uniquely digital and yet skill-intensive: play a card, get to choose one of three different cards from a specific pool of cards. Some pools are small and you can predict very well what you can [...]

]]>The Discover mechanic has been an awesome addition to Hearthstone, and we’ve sang praises to it before. It is so uniquely digital and yet skill-intensive: play a card, get to choose one of three different cards from a specific pool of cards. Some pools are small and you can predict very well what you can find, while some pools are large and the variance is bigger.

In this article, I’m digging bit deeper into the figures for The Boomsday Project Standard format. You are probably aware of the basic ground rules: you can only Discover cards that are Neutral or from your own class, and class cards are more likely to be offered. However, when we know the specific card pools, we can do better than that. What can we really expect to discover in Boomsday? Let’s find out!

Arcane Dynamo

Arcane Dynamo is a new Neutral minion from The Boomsday Project that can Discover a spell that costs five or more mana. Aside from the basic issue of why would you want to put the card in your deck instead of just putting in the spell you want, we can take a look at how likely you are to find the cards you need with it.

Druid has eight spells that cost five or more, so the probability to discover a specific one is 37.5%.

Hunter has five spells that cost five or more, so the probability to discover a specific one is 60% – and this includes Flark's Boom-Zooka.

Mage has eight spells that cost five or more, so the probability to discover a specific one is 37.5%.

Paladin has ten spells that cost five or more, so the probability to discover a specific one is 30%.

Priest has 12 spells that cost five or more, so the probability to discover a specific one is 25%.

Rogue has six spells that cost five or more, so the probability to discover a specific one is 50%.

Shaman has five spells that cost five or more, so the probability to discover a specific one is 60%.

Warlock has five spells that cost five or more, so the probability to discover a specific one is 60%.

Warrior has seven spells that cost five or more, so the probability to discover a specific one is 42.9%.

There are major differences between classes. Whereas Priest and Paladin cannot easily find a specific card, Hunter could grab some extra copies of their Legendary spell more than half of the time.

Arcane Keysmith

Arcane Keysmith has seen quite a lot of play in multiple Mage archetypes. It has been used in slow Control Mage decks and also in Tempo Mage and Murloc Mage. Discovering powerful Secrets on-demand is a useful ability.

Mage does not receive new Secrets in Boomsday, so there will still be eight Mage Secrets in Standard format:

Blazing Invocation

Blazing Invocation has not found its place in the meta. While spending one mana to Discover a minion is not that high of a price to pay, the pool of Battlecry minions is huge: 164 Neutral minions and 19 Shaman class minions. It’s not easy to find what you need from a pool that large, and indeed, your chance to find a specific Shaman class minion is only 5% – and the chance to find a specific Neutral minion is only 1%. That’s nothing to write home about.

Chittering Tunneler

Chittering Tunneler has seen occasional play, but it has not exactly been a strong card. As new expansions are added, the card pool grows and it is now at 31 Warlock spells in Standard. The probability to find a specific spell is therefore down to 10%.

Dark Possession

Dark Possession has seen occasional play in more control-oriented Warlock decks after its debut in The Witchwood. The current Standard card pool includes 20 Warlock class Demons and five Neutral Demons, so the probability to find a specific class Demon is 14% and the probability to find a specific Neutral Demon is 4%.

With Void Analyst bringing in additional Demon synergies again, it might not be too bad, although most decks that are interested in Demon synergies would rather deal damage to opponents than to their own face.

Dendrologist

Dendrologist is one of the many new Treant synergy cards in The Boomsday Project. It remains to be seen whether the archetype is viable, but we can take a look at Dendrologist individually regardless. There are 38 Druid spells that you can Discover with Dendrologist, so the probability to find a specific one is only 8%.

However, things don’t look quite as bleak if you group up the cards a bit. For example, there are nine cards that can deal damage to the opponent (including cards that give your Hero attack), so you can find one of those 57% of the time. Likewise, eight cards can give you tokens, so you can find some more minions 52% of the time. Or, if you’re looking to buff up your Treant board, there are eight cards that buff at least one minion for a 52% chance there as well. Dendrologist may not always give you the best possible card, but it can often provide you with a card of a specific type.

Free from Amber

Free From Amber is a Spiteful Priest classic that has seen its play rate decrease as Spiteful Priest went away from the meta. In Boomsday Standard format, there are 31 Neutral minions you can Discover with Free from Amber and then there is Obsidian Statue – still the lone Priest class card. You still have a reasonable 31.32% chance to Discover Obsidian Statue, while the chance to Discover a specific Neutral minion is 8.67%.

The new additions to the pool from Boomsday, Mecha'thun and Bull Dozer, have decent stats, so they do not significantly weaken Free From Amber. It’s still a solid card, if it can find the right deck.

Hydrologist

Hydrologist has long been one of the most reliable Discover cards. Getting to choose one card from the small pool of Paladin Secrets is unlikely to go wrong.

Boomsday adds Autodefense Matrix to the mix and brings the number of Secrets in the pool to six:

Therefore, you have an exactly 50% chance to Discover any specific Secret.

Myra Rotspring

Myra Rotspring is the new Rogue Legendary minion. It allows you to Discover a Deathrattle minion and also gives Myra a copy of its Deathrattle.

The math part for this Discover is the easy part. There are 5 Rogue Deathrattle minions and 41 Neutral Deathrattle minions in Boomsday Standard format. Therefore, the probability to Discover a specific Rogue Deathrattle is 18.96% and the probability to Discover a specific Neutral Deathrattle is 5%.

However, evaluating Myra is more complicated than that. It requires a subjective evaluation of how many of those cards are any good.

All of these have their uses, but none of them is strikingly powerful – there are no Mechanical Whelps or Cairne Bloodhoofs here (although you could hit those as a Neutral option).

Out of all the available cards, 15 summon something when they die – that’s a 73% chance to find such a Deathrattle! However, may of these are mere 1/1s and may not be enough to make a difference. Furthermore, another 13 cards give you more resources, either generated or drawn, that’s a 69% chance to get that. Once again, though, many of these are not very powerful resources.

Myra can give you many types of things. Whether she can provide enough tempo or enough value is more difficult to judge.

Omega Assembly

Omega Assembly promises tons of value. The one-mana Discover spells have generally been lackluster, but at 10 mana crystals you can grab three Mechs in one go. Maybe go all Boom before that and you can even grab some Rush Mechs? Doesn’t sound bad at all.

There are four Warrior class Mechs in Standard, all of them from The Boomsday Project:

There are also 34 Neutral Mechs in Standard right now – 26 of them from The Boomsday Project! So, the probability to Discover a specific Warrior Mech is 23% whereas the probability to Discover a specific Neutral Mech is 6%.

How good are these Mechs? The Warrior class Mechs are all situational. They are good in some cases, but there are no unconditional superstars among them.

We can examine the overall Mech pool also through some keywords:

Seven of the Mechs are Magnetic – 50% to Discover one of them.

Four of the Mechs have Rush – 23% to Discover one of them.

Five of the Mechs have Taunt – 28% to Discover one of them.

These are not quite Deathstalker Rexxar figures, so you cannot reliably expect to get anything specific.

Primalfin Lookout

Primalfin Lookout does not see much play even in Murloc decks as they tend to be more tempo than value-oriented, but it can dig for some good cards if needed.

Only two classes have class-specific Murloc right now: Paladin has Hydrologist and Primalfin Champion whereas Shaman has Brrrloc and Ghost Light Angler. For those classes, the probability to find a specific class Murloc is 55% and the probability to find a specific Neutral Murloc (out of 11) is 17%. For all other classes, the probability to find a specific Neutral Murloc is 27%.

If you have a Murloc deck that is looking for some resource generation, Primalfin Lookout is not bad at all.

Primordial Glyph

Primordial Glyph has seen a lot of play in faster Mage decks. More face damage, surprise board control, you name it, Primordial Glyph can deliver it. Sometimes, anyway.

There are currently 39 Mage spells that can be Discovered in the Standard format. Therefore, the probability to discover a specific one is slightly below 8%.

However, the true power of Primordial Glyph becomes more apparent when we group up the spells a little:

There are eight Secrets, so the probability to find one is 51%.

There are six spells than can go face, so the probability to find one is 40%.

There are seven spells that deal area-of-effect damage, so the probability to find one is 46%.

There are six spells that can freeze a minion, so the probability to find one is 40%.

While you may not find a specific spell very easily, you can find a specific type of effect almost half of the time.

Servant of Kalimos

Servant of Kalimos has not been able to find a stable slot in any deck. Elemental Shaman has been too predictable to succeed and Elemental Mage has not quite risen to prominence either. After Ragnaros, Lightlord rotated out of Standard format, Elemental Paladin has not quite had the tools either. Boomsday only brings two new Mage Elementals and four new Shaman Elementals to the game, so an Elemental uprising is not to be expected.

That said, it is interesting to examine what Servant of Kalimos can do in those two classes in particular.

There are currently 18 Shaman class Elementals and 10 Mage class Elementals in Standard format alongside 20 Neutral Elementals. Therefore, the probability for Shaman to discover a specific class Elemental is 13% and the chance to Discover a specific Neutral Elemental is 3%. For Mage, these figures are 20% for a specific class Elemental and 5% for a specific Neutral Elemental. If you have a dream involving Pyros and Bonfire Elemental, you are likely going to be disappointed.

Stonehill Defender

Stonehill Defender has seen a lot of play in various control decks and in almost all archetypes of Paladin. The ability to Discover some additional Sunkeeper Tarims has turned out to be pretty good.

In the current Standard card pool, there are 38 Neutral Taunt minions. Paladin has four class Taunts now that Boomsday added Annoy-o-Module. Mage and Warrior remain unchanged: no class Taunts for Mage and five class Taunts for Warrior. Overall, Boomsday added five Neutral Taunt minions and only one class-specific Taunt minion, the Paladin one.

Therefore, Paladin has a 21.26% chance to find that Sunkeeper Tarim and a 5.66% chance to find a specific Neutral Taunt minion. Mage has a 7.89% chance to find a specific Neutral Taunt minion (like The Lich King). Warrior has a 19.92% chance to find a specific class Taunt, such as Cornered Sentry, and a 5.27% chance to find a specific Neutral Taunt minion.

The Runespear

The Runespear has never exactly been awesome. Boomsday added another five Shaman spells, bringing the total to 34. Therefore, the probability to find a specific spell is only 9%. Because the targets are random, many of the spells can also backfire. Alas, Discovery is a powerful mechanic to mitigate negative effects. Even though there are 11 spells that can backfire, you are offered only such spells a mere 2.8% of the time.

Therefore, the probability to find a specific Hunter Secret is 37.5%. Secret Plan shows some promise, because it has a decent level of consistency and the Hunter Secrets are not bad overall.

The other Discover cards

There are also some Discover cards that do not pick from a pool of cards available to you in the current format, but from a different subset. These often pick from the deck of one of the players, such as Shadow Visions, Stitched Tracker, and Cloning Device. Their odds change all the time as the game goes on and the remaining deck changes. Therefore, it is not useful to go into much detail on them.

Furthermore, some Discover cards pick from huge card pools, such as Hallucination and Explore Un'Goro. Here we get to probabilities in the region of 0.5% to 2% to find a specific card, and it is difficult to be very analytic about the possible outcomes. They are cards that you just play and see what you are offered.

What Can You Expect From Discover in Boomsday meta?

Not a whole lot has changed compared to The Witchwood meta. There are not that many new Secrets, Taunts, or Elementals, for example, so the numbers do not drastically change. Cards that Discover Secrets continue to be consistent and class-specific spell Discoveries also continue to be fairly reliable – with Dendrologist added to the mix for Druid spells.

The new additions Myra Rotspring and Omega Assembly are interesting and exhibit a mediocre level of consistency, so they could well find spots in the right decks. Arcane Dynamo varies depending on the class from fairly unreliable to somewhat consistent – would a Hunter use it to make it more likely to get to play the Legendary spell, for example?

Anyway, these are the numbers. It is good to be aware of the general probabilities both for deck-building and for making in-game decisions, but there is always a level of interpretation involved as well. How many of Myra’s potential Deathrattles do you consider to be good? How many of the Hunter Secrets are worth Discovering? Pure numbers have a hard time answering such questions, and the answers will change with the meta as well. Going in with realistic expectations on how often you will discover particular cards helps you make decisions, but ultimately you need to make the call in the end.

What about you? What do you expect from Discover in Boomsday? Which Discover cards do you intend to play with? Let me know in the comments!

]]>https://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/discover-in-boomsday-what-can-you-expect-to-find-in-this-standard-format/feed/5The Boomsday Project Card Review #6 (Final) – Floop’s Glorious Gloop, Harbinger Celestia, Flark’s Boom-Zooka, Goblin Prank and More!https://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/the-boomsday-project-card-review-6-final-floops-glorious-gloop-harbinger-celestia-flarks-boom-zooka-goblin-prank-and-more/
https://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/the-boomsday-project-card-review-6-final-floops-glorious-gloop-harbinger-celestia-flarks-boom-zooka-goblin-prank-and-more/#respondFri, 03 Aug 2018 16:38:06 +0000https://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/?p=114893If you’re anything like me, then reveal season is your favorite time of the year (alongside the first days of a new expansion). With nothing figured out, new cards coming every day, wild theories and early deck builds (which most likely won’t work) popping up everywhere, and that surprise when you look at some card [...]

]]>If you’re anything like me, then reveal season is your favorite time of the year (alongside the first days of a new expansion). With nothing figured out, new cards coming every day, wild theories and early deck builds (which most likely won’t work) popping up everywhere, and that surprise when you look at some card and think to yourself – “what were they thinking when they’ve designed it?”

I’ll take a closer look at each one of them, review it and rate it from 1 to 10. The scale itself should be quite obvious, but just to quickly explain how I see it: A card rated 5 is average – it might be playable in some decks, but it’s nothing special. Cards rated 3-4 might see some play in off-meta decks, or as obscure techs, but the closer we get to 1, the lower that chance is. When I rate card 1 or 2, I don’t believe that it will see any Constructed, non-meme play at all. On the other hand, going above 5 means that I see this card as something with a lot of potential. While I can’t guarantee that it will work out in the end, I believe that the cards with 6-8 are likely to see at least some Constructed play, while cards rated 9 or 10 are, in my mind, nearly sure hits – even if not right after the expansion’s release. 1 and 10 are reserved to the worst or best cards I can imagine, meaning that they won’t be used very often.

Remember that without knowing how the post-expansion meta is going to look like, it’s very hard to rate the cards correctly. I advise you to pay more attention to the description than the rating itself – I will try to explore some of the potential synergies and reasons why a given card might or might not work. I also encourage you to share your own predictions and reviews in the comment section. Even if you aren’t sure, don’t worry, no one is! There is nothing wrong about being wrong, I have never seen anyone who nailed most of the card ratings before the release. But, without further ado, let’s proceed with the reviews!

Thank you all for staying with me through all of those reviews – it was a very busy season. I hope that you liked them and that you will stick with us until the next reveal season!

Floop’s Glorious Gloop

What lots of folks seem to be missing is that this card gives you +1 mana for each MINION that dies, not every FRIENDLY MINION. It basically means that clearing opponent’s stuff also makes you gain extra mana. Because of that, I believe that this card can be insanely powerful in Token Druid deck, because you end up trading stuff very often. We all know that pre-nerf Innervate was a really good card, and it takes 3 minions dying for this to become one (more or less).

Just for example, if you have some minions on the board, your opponent has some, and you end up trading 2 of yours into 2 of the opponent’s, that gives you 4 mana for 1 mana = +3 mana. That’s crazy good, and it’s not some outlandish scenario.

You COULD also play it in Malygos deck to gain lots of extra mana. For example, you might drop Malygos one turn, then drop Flobbidinous Floop next turn, play this card, Swipe face destroying an entire board, get some extra mana and either play 2nd Swipe or Faceless and Moonfires. But I don’t think that Malygos deck will have space for this card.

This card will be pretty situational, so it definitely won’t be as widespread as the old Innervate, but it has a lot of potential to be broken in the right deck and in the right meta.

Card rating: 9/10

Bronze Gatekeeper

Another Silverback Patriarch powercreep… Honestly, this would be terrible if not for the Magnetic thing, but with Magnetic, it actually might make some sense to run it. Playing 3 mana 1/5 Taunt isn’t good, but adding +1/5 and Taunt to an existing minion can be really solid. Even playing it on Upgradeable Framebot creates a 2/10 Taunt on Turn 3, something that Aggro decks definitely don’t want to see.

Not the most exciting cards, but I could see it being played in slower Mech decks, like Mech Control Warrior. If Mech Paladins end up playing their Egg, it might also be another way to activate it. We have so many low attack / high health Mechs that we might be back to slower board battles! Overall, okay card.

Card rating: 6/10

Skaterbot

If his flavor text won’t be “He was a skaterbot, she said see you later bot”, then my life doesn’t make sense anymore.

But as for he card, it looks quite strong. While a 1/1 for 1 with Rush is not particularly powerful, it’s like a worse Stonetusk Boar, it’s more like a 1 mana spell “Give Rush and +1/+1 to a friendly Mech”, and that’s some powerful stuff. It’s solid value and can make Mech decks much faster – you no longer have to worry that your big Mech will be killed without you getting any value out of it. You can Rush him, trade into something and then even when it dies, at least you didn’t lost lots of tempo. I think that it should see play in Tempo/Midrange kind of Mech decks.

That said, it seems like another broken addition to the Glinda Crowskin + Mechwarper Combo in the Wild. Sure, Zilliax is still better, but this adds redundancy. On Turn 8, you can play Glinda + Mechwarper + start spamming those, clear the entire board and end up with a big board yourself. It will be a serious APM test, but you should end up with a pretty broken board. I feel like Magnetic cards shouldn’t be able to work with Glinda for that reason.

Overall, good in Standard, potentially broken in Wild.

Card rating: 7/10

Tending Tauren

Good card in Token Druid, and if you’re specifically running the Treant strategy, you DEFINITELY want to play it. It’s like a miniature version of Cenarius. While the effects are weaker, it’s much better in a deck like that, simply because it comes 3 turns earlier.

What I like about it is flexibility. If you don’t have a board, you can create one. 3/4 + 2/2 + 2/2 for 6 mana might not seem scary, but remember what deck you put it in. Your opponent will absolutely have to clear it, because otherwise you drop 2x Savage Roar and deal 23 damage. More ways to create boards is always good in that deck, because right now you simply can re-flood it only a few times.

And if you already have a board, you can use it as a wide buff and a small body on top of that. This option seems a bit weaker, but it’s not a dead card even if you don’t need more minions.

Solid card, will definitely see play in Treant version, and possibly even in the regular version of Token Druid.

Card rating: 7/10

Coppertail Imposter

Cool concept. 4 mana 4/4 with Stealth, but Stealth disappears after a turn. I guess that they didn’t want to have a Mech with perma-stealth because you could just stack and stack Magnetic buffs to it and then throw one huge hit in. Might not be the best strategy, but they want to make it more interactive. For all of the normal uses, one turn of Stealth on this guy is pretty much as good as perma-stealth, as you will want to attack right away anyway.

The idea behind it is to have a Mech that sticks onto Turn 5, so then you can buff it with e.g. Wargear (9/9) or Zilliax (7/5 with Taunt and Divine Shield). But besides the fact that it will stick, it’s still a 4 mana 4/4 minion with no other effect, making it… good, but not amazing. However, if you play a bunch of Magnetize cards, it might still make a cut just for the fact that it will make Magnetize mechanic more consistent. Stealth is also good, because even if you don’t Magnetize onto it, you can dictate where the trade goes most of the time.

Mechano-Egg

Eggs, eggs everywhere! This doesn’t look particularly tasy, but an 8/8 coming out of it is no joke. It’s slower than Devilsaur Egg, even more vulnerable to Silence (because you prefer opponent to Silence your 3 mana minion, not 5 mana minion), but the main problem is activating it. I mean, it won’t be a problem in Paladin, but I’m talking about efficient way to do it. Hunter plays Eggs now, because it can Play Dead it, or Terrorscale Stalker it. Often even on the same turn, leaving opponent with no time to answer. This is different. You can only activate it with a bunch of buffs, and given that it has a high health already, adding another buff or Magnetic Mech onto it means that you probably can’t even sacrifice it immediately. So ultimately, it will be really, and I mean REALLY weak to Silence. Like, imagine you spend 5 mana on it, then spend some more mana on the buff and it gets Silenced, leaving you with basically nothing. I know that’s looking at the worst case scenario, but still.

The only cool point is that if you run Meat Wagon (which you can draw with Crystology, by the way), this card gets pulled out 100% of the time. That’s actually quite good – you can pull it for 0 mana or buff Meatwagon so it will pull out something bigger too.

So in the end, I’d say that it will be a meta call. It will REALLY depend on how common Silence is, since Paladin’s only way to activate it is buffing it. Alternatively, we might see some Crazed Alchemist shenanigans, but I’m not sure if a vanilla 8/8 is really worth that much hassle.

Card rating: 5/10

Glow-Tron

Amazing card. If Dire Mole has taught us anything, it’s that 1 mana 1/3 are solid. Even if vanilla 1 mana 1/3 is not gamebreaking, it’s already good enough to put into some decks. Now, this has some more advantages. First of all – a Mech tag, for the sake of all synergies. And then, if you don’t want it as a 1/3 1-drop, you can use it to give minion +1/+3. The buff part will be amazing later down the road. 1/3 on Turn 1 is solid, but it would rarely make any impact in the late game, while +1/+3 immediate buff can make your trade better, keep some bigger Mech alive or just be used to make your board more AoE-resistant.

Heck, you might even run it in Odd Paladin without other Mech synergies. Depending on the meta, 1 mana 1/3 might be your best 1-drop, often better than something like Argent Squire (against other fast decks, at least).

Lots of people don’t realize, but usually it isn’t a flashy, high cost Legendary that makes the deck – it’s a basic, small card like that that is often way more important. And this will be auto-include into any Mech Paladin build.

Card rating: 9/10

Weapons Project

Very interesting design, probably my favorite “Project” card of the set. While it seems weird, it has so many applications if you play it in the right deck and use at the right time. Despite the effect being mirrored, it really isn’t – majority of the time you’re going to take advantage of it more than your opponent will.

First, against Aggro. While you give your opponent a 2/3 weapon, you also gain 6 Armor, so those effects will usually negate each other (as your opponent will likely use that weapon to hit you anyway). Since he will be the one playing multiple small minions, you will utilize that weapon better. And his Armor is basically useless most of the time. Honestly, against a deck like the current Heal Zoo, giving them Armor before they take damage might even be a way to disrupt their game plan. Neat! Plus if you face a weapon deck, you might actually be able to replace their current weapon. Let’s say that Hunter plays an Eaglehorn Bow, by giving them a 2/3 weapon you will destroy it.

Against Control, on the other hand, this can be a tech card vs Legendary Weapons. Druid playing Twig of the World Tree for the combo? Warlock running Skull of the Man'ari? Mage with Aluneth? You can get rid of those. Plus, if you play some sort of weapon removal, especially Harrison Jones, you can combo those two cards really nicely. You will end up with 6 extra Armor, 2/3 weapon, 5/4 on the board and +1 card advantage for 7 mana, while your opponent ends up with 6 mana. Really solid move.

Very interesting card, not straightforward and has some downsides (it’s mirorred, after all), but I feel like it should see a decent amounts of play in Control builds.

Card rating: 8/10

Spirit Bomb

Compared to Darkbomb, it looks really, really poorly. Dealing 3 damage to everything vs dealing 4 damage to a minion is comparable, but taking 4 extra damage… oh my. In some cases it could be seen as an upside, but most of the time it will be a massive downside.

If you pay one more mana, you get Shadow Bolt without a downside. Is 1 mana worth taking 4 damage? Well, to be fair, some of the decks have no choice. If you want to play an early single target removal in Even Warlock, you can’t put the 3 mana spell in. So this might be played there. It buffs Lesser Amethyst Spellstone, and it brings you closer to a buffed Hooked Reaver. But it will probably be meta-dependent. If Aggro decks will play single, stronger early game minions – stuff like Hench-Clan Thug or Vicious Fledgling – then it’s solid. You take damage once, but you prevent them from hitting you multiple times. On the other hand, it’s really bad against Aggro decks going wide, such as Odd Paladin, and to a certain extent Zoo Warlock too (I mean, you will be able to answer one minion, but AoE is what you really need).

Maybe playable in non-Prince Keleseth Zoo Warlock? The deck doesn’t really care about damage right now, especially the healing build. But I’m not sure if it would want a reactive card like that, it prefers a proactive play style.

All in all, Even Warlock looks like the most likely candidate, but it will be a meta call. Right now, it might seem that the deck doesn’t need more healing, but the meta is incredibly slow and doesn’t have lots of burst. Try playing Even Warlock against decks like Tempo Mage or Odd Paladin all the time and you will notice that every bit of life helps, taking 4 damage just like that is often going to lose you the game. That said, if the meta will demand it, and people will drop high priority 3-4 health targets in the early game, it might see play.

Card rating: 5/10

Crystallizer

I think this might be one of my favorite cards of the set. While it appears really pointless when you first look at it, the more you think the better it becomes. There are lots of builds that could utilize trading health for Armor.

First of all, it has solid stats. Of course, 1 mana 1/3 is better in a fast deck, but you wouldn’t be very sad dropping it on Turn 1 in a slower deck too. And it has quite a lot of synergies:

In decks that run healing, you can’t really heal yourself over 30, but with this you “technically” can. For example, one of the issues with a Paladin deck running healing is when you are at full health and some of your cards are useless. You can’t even activate Lesser Pearl Spellstone (had to google the name right now, I haven’t seen it in Constructed even once).

In Warlock, there are some ways to use it. First, in Heal Zoo, you need to be damaged to heal yourself and play free Happy Ghoul. You already have some better ways to do it on Turn 1, but still. Then, in slower Warlock, this can get you in the Hooked Reaver range or activate the Spellstone while not actually dealing any damage to you (win-win!). Also, it synergizes with the new Nethersoul Buster. A single copy of this guy turns it into a 6/5 minion for 3 mana. Indeed busted!

In Warrior, you nearly always prefer Armor over Health. Not only Armor does synergize with your cards (e.g. Shield Slam), but dealing damage to yourself early might activate Battle Rage. When Warrior is running that card, people often skip attacking his face early to not activate it!

The main downside of this card is that you can’t play it when you’re at 5 health or lower, since you will just kill yourself. But then again, if you’re that close to dying, I don’t think that a 1 mana 1/3 would save you anyway most of the time, so losing BECAUSE of this card would be a niche situation.

All in all, interesting card with lots of applications. The ones I listed are just examples, I bet there are more ways to utilize it. So while I don’t think that it will be broken in any deck, it can be slotted into some of them for an cool upside over other 1-drops.

Card rating: 8/10

Nethersoul Buster

It reminds me a bit of the Darkshire Councilman back from Whispers of the Old Gods, but instead of gaining the attack slowly, it gets everything immediately. All or nothing. That’s why it’s not really a 3-drop – if you play it on Turn 3, you will just play a vanilla 1/5, and that’s terrible in Zoo (or in any other deck, to be fair). In order to make him work, you need to play him with another card. Luckily for Warlock, the cards that synergize with him cost 1 mana – Kobold Librarian, Flame Imp and the new Crystallizer. To be honest, the card is good enough even with just Librarian – you get a 3 mana 3/5, which is fine. Then, in case of Flame Imp, the stats jump up to 4/5, and with Crystallizer – 6/5. The last one is especially powerful, as a 6/5 minion can wreck havoc on the opponent in an aggressive deck like that.

Does it mean that it’s useless if you can’t combo it? Well, not exactly – you can still play it on Turn 5 with Life Tap. It will make it a 3/5, so the play will be a bit slow, but it’s by no means a dead card in the mid/late game even if you can’t combo it. I feel like Zoo puts more and more focus on self-damage, and that’s a really interesting approach to the deck – if they release a few more synergies, it will definitely be THE way to play it. As for right now, it already starts to look promising.

The main issue was the same that Duskbat had – if you have a 3-drop, you usually want to play it on Turn 3, not wait an extra turn or two to pump up his effect. But it might be worth in this case. Duskbat, while it was really good if it triggered the effect, could never reach the crazy good levels of this card. Crystallizer alone is insane with this, and if you can let’s say Crystallizer + Flame Imp + this one in the mid game, your opponent absolutely needs to clear it right away or he takes 9 damage. So I wouldn’t overhype the card, but it looks pretty decent.

Card rating: 7/10

Harbinger Celestia

This is a weird one, not sure what to think about it. While I applaud Team 5 for a cool design, it seems to be incredibly weak. Or rather, incredibly meta-dependent. If everyone would be playing either no-minion decks or decks with only big minions, then it would be amazing. But that won’t happen.

So, for 4 mana you get a 5/6 with Stealth. That’s massive, but don’t be too happy yet, because you most likely won’t be able to use it as a 5/6. This is like a Mirror Entity, which costs 1 mana more, you can’t cheat out with Kirin Tor Mage and is not really a Secret, because your opponent knows what it is. Basically, if your opponent has any small minion in your hand, you just spent 4 mana to get it. If your opponent drops some 1-drop, or 2-drop, then you get a copy of it and that’s it.

The thing is, even most of the slow decks actually run small minions. Control Priest would be able to counter it with let’s say Wild Pyromancer, Big Spell Mage with Raven Familiar, Even Warlock with… a bunch of stuff, including Doomsayer if you have anything else on the board.

It only punishes your opponent if a) they don’t have any minions at all (rarely happens) and b) they have only big minions and can’t deal with your copy immediately. But those two scenarios don’t come up that often. In most of the matchups, and throughout most of the matches this card will be weak. Completely dead against most of the Aggro decks, unless you enjoy playing 4 mana 1/2’s.

A very specific tech card, might see play in some weird meta a while for now, but I don’t see it being usable in Boomsday. At all. Still, I give Team 5 A for the design, I wouldn’t come up with that one.

Card rating: 2/10, but it technically MIGHT be strong in certain specific matchups, so if they dominate the meta… yeah.

Soul Infusion

First of all, I appreciate that it’s actually a left-most minion, not a random minion like Smuggler's Crate (well “Beast” is not completely random, but still more random than this one, since you would run it in a deck with lots of Beasts). An effect like that is much better if it’s controllable, even if only to a certain extent. Left-most minion is always the “oldest” minion in your hand (outside of the starting hand), so that’s actually a bit of a downside, since if you will be stuck with an early Doomguard on the left side of your hand, then you won’t be able to use it on the cards you actually want. I mean, technically it’s not that bad on Doomguard either, just not perfect.

Ideally, you want to hit cards that multiply, those on which you will get it multiple times. So Saronite Chain Gang or the new Doubling Imp make perfect targets for it. Hitting those basically makes it 1 mana for a +4/+4, which is insane in Zoo Warlock. But just a regular +2/+2 for 1 mana is not that bad. For example, Demonfire was a semi-common card in Warlock and it was solid. The downside of a handbuff is that you’re never able to use it as a “Charge”, extra stats are always applied with summoning sickness (or however it’s called in HS). But the 1 mana difference, and the fact that you can play it on anything and not only Demons makes it interesting. Hitting any minion in the early game might make it quite good. For example, a 3/5 Voidwalker or a 5/5 Vicious Fledgling (it can get really messy if your opponent can’t answer it immediately, and answering a 5/5 minion on T3 might be hard).

The problem is that it might be a bit hard to fit, especially in the current Heal Zoo list. The deck is already packed because of the Heal package, and you would want 2 copies of those and 2 copies of Doubling Imp too… But it might still be worth.

Technically you could also bring the Leeroy Jenkins + Power Overwhelming + Faceless Manipulator combo back. Just hit Leeroy twice with it, play it and Faceless it. The problem is that if you draw Faceless first, the whole combo is bad, making it completely useless (not to mention that it requires more setup).

I think that it’s an interesting card with some potential, getting 2x 4/4 on T3 or 2x 4/5 Taunt on T4 can be potentially game-winning as Zoo Warlock, the deck that cares so much about early game tempo.

Card rating: 7/10

Doubling Imp

This card is definitely going to see play in Zoo. Even at the base level – 3 mana for 2x 2/2 is pretty solid. It’s not amazing or anything, but that would already be played, most likely. And now the fact that it comes with an upside makes it even better.

If you play it in Prince Keleseth deck, it will often be 2x 3/3 for 3, which is pretty broken already. It’s like Saronite Chain Gang, which combos very well with Keleseth. Besides Keleseth, you could also combo it with the new Soul Infusion – 2x 4/4 for 3 mana (well, technically for 4, but you can pay the 1 mana earlier – e.g. 1-drop + Soul Infusion on T2) is insane and can win you lots of games, because your opponent will have a hard time taking the board control from you.

I like this card, Zoo Warlock doesn’t have a particularly amazing 3 mana slot anyway, so it shouldn’t really be hard to add those in.

Card rating: 8/10

Explodinator

Okay card, actually. At first it seems pretty bad – paying 4 mana for a 3/2 is not really good. However, if you realize that the 3/2 summons two 1-drops (Goblin Bomb), then it becomes much better. Like I’ve said many times, I don’t think that Goblin Bombs are worth 1 mana, it’s more like 0.5, but the fact that it combines two of those into one card and adds a body is worth something.

I disagree with calling it a 4 mana 3/6 like some people do. Adding stats of the cards like that is pointless, especially since in this case the 0/2’s can attack by themselves. The two 0/2’s, however, make nice Magnetic targets for the future turns. It’s basically like a miniature Boommaster Flark. Your opponent doesn’t really want to spend damage to kill Bombs and take damage himself, so he will often leave them, and then you can buff them or trigger their Deathrattles etc.

What I dislike about it is that it’s really slow immediately. While it’s good against slower decks, Aggro deck can easily clear the 3/2 body and possibly even the 0/2’s – he doesn’t care about damage anyway, and won’t spend many resources to do it (0 attack minions won’t hit back).

Another potential use for this is in some kind of Token deck, like Token Druid or Token Shaman. Summoning three bodies is quite alright. But I think that Giggling Inventor might just be better for that.

So overall I’d say that it’s about average.

Card rating: 5/10

Test Subject

It looks like Silence will be more and more desirable this expansion, with effects like that. Test Subject is pretty bad at the beginning, but he can get out of control really quickly. Despite being a 1-drop, you can’t really look at him as one. Most of the time, you want to throw him on the board with some small buff first – e.g. Power Word: Shield. Now if your opponent answers it, you still get another shield to cycle, so it’s not that bad. If he Silences it, that’s also not bad in the kind of deck you’re playing. But if he sticks onto the board, you can start throwing extra buffs – Divine Spirit, Inner Fire and such. You probably won’t kill your opponent right away, but you should put a massive target on the board and if it gets killed, repeat.

So that’s the kind of deck it might fit into. Other than that, maybe Quest Priest, but I don’t think it runs enough buffs to justify this guy.

The card is pretty powerful in vacuum, but the problem is that the meta MIGHT be full of Silence cards, rendering it rather weak. It’s the Primalfin Champion problem – when it works, it’s really good, but then it gets Silenced/Transformed and suddenly it’s bad for you.

P.S. I’ve read about some interesting combo that might basically break the game… With Radiant Elementals and those guys, thanks to Vivid Nightmare, you might be cloning your spells. The combo is pretty slow and awkward, but I think it’s the first time we’re getting something like that. We will have a theorycraft on that deck soon, so stay tuned!

Card rating: 6/10

Extra Arms

Cool card, I love the flavor. Sadly, it doesn’t look too strong. You’re paying 6 mana for what is basically a Blessing of Kings – overpaying 2 mana is not great. Of course, you can argue that you can spread it among two targets, it synergizes with Test Subject, you can play it for cheaper with Radiant Elemental and those are all true, but I still don’t think those make it good enough.

I feel like Unidentified Elixir might be a better option for one simple reason – it’s a higher tempo play. Besides the +2/+2 buff, you’re also getting an extra, immediate effect, as opposed to another 3 mana +2/+2 buff. A slow card that gives you another slow card isn’t great if it doesn’t impact the game significantly. And this one doesn’t.

So, again, I like the flavor, but I doubt that it will see play, because it seems underwhelming.

Card rating: 3/10

Astral Rift

In general, getting 2 cards for 2 mana is a very powerful effect. But you really, really want those cards to be at least playable. But in this case, you can’t. Random minion means that you can get absolutely anything. And if you look at the list of minions, you will notice that only a portion of them actually sees play, and only a portion of that portion would be good in the deck you play it in. So there is a significant chance that you will end up with 2 bad minions, or a bad and a mediocre minion. To get two good minions, you would need to be incredibly lucky. There’s no way that it’s worth 1 mana discount over Arcane Intellect, which always gets you 2 good cards (because you put them into your deck).

Now, this might be okay to get from a random source, like if you’re looking for more value, see this in Primordial Glyph, you can pick it. But that’s basically it. You don’t want ot put it into your deck. The only situation in which this might be good is if you follow it up with Leyline Manipulator and discount those two minions by 2. But same thing can be said about lots of other cards, and I don’t see them being played.

Card rating: 2/10

Bomb Toss

Important to mention first that this card can go face. Lately they’ve been cutting down on those and most of the early removals work only on the minions. Normally, you expect 3 damage for 2 mana. This deals 2, but also summons a 1-drop. Which would generally be an amazing thing, but that 1-drop isn’t very exciting. Goblin Bomb, I’ve mentioned it many times already, is not really worth 1 mana, because it’s pretty bad.

That said, even if you count Gobiln Bomb at 0.5 mana, this is already a pretty solid card. You can use it for the early board control and summon a bomb, or later in the game to deal face damage and possibly finish your opponent off with the bomb too. If anything, this might go into an aggressive Hunter deck with lots of bombs and ways to trigger them, plus lots of Magnetize minions to take advantage of them. In that kind of deck, it should be a good card. In others, hard to say, I don’t see it outside of a deck that can reliably trigger the Bombs and runs Magnetize. But it can be powerful in that kind of deck.

Card rating: 8/10

Secret Plan

On the one hand, putting this into the deck means that you have to pay 3 mana for your Secret. On the other hand, you get much more flexibility. Depending on the matchup, board state etc. you can just pick the best Secret possible. For example, people have been putting Rat Trap into some builds a while ago and it was very mediocre. It was amazing in some matchups, but in others it nearly never (or really NEVER) triggered. To be honest, I would gladly put this instead of Rat Trap in that deck – I could still pick Rat Trap in the matchups where it matters, and I could have an extra Explosive Trap against Aggro etc.

If you play a Hunter deck with Secrets (like Spell Hunter) + Lesser Emerald Spellstone package, you will probably want to take out the more situational Secrets and replace them with this. Paying 1 extra so you can make a choice each game is worth it.

Heck, you might even want to play it in Prince Keleseth version of Recruit Hunter just to have access to Secrets. It might fix some of the deck’s weaknesses, like lack of AoE.

Overall, I like this card, it’s really solid.

Card rating: 8/10

Necromechanic

This card has a lot of potential, but it feels a bit too slow for the current Deathrattle Hunter decks. Because of the rather weak stats (3/6 for 5 is not good), you don’t really want to drop it on the curve. You want to drop it on the same turn you’re triggering a Deathrattle, but it means that a Deathrattle minion had to stick to the board, which isn’t a given in Deathrattle Hunter. It shares the same problems Baron Rivendare did – a good effect, but rather weak stats and hard to get value of.

In most of the decks, Carnivorous Cube seems better, and you can’t really run both. I mean, technically you can, but Deathrattle Hunter decks already have strong mid-late game shenanigans so it just feels unnecessary. Maybe as an one-of, to make those shenanigans even better. Like if you stick a Cube, then play this + Play Dead, basically no matter what you’ve eaten, this play is going to be massive.

But maybe it has a place in something like Bomb Hunter? There are lots of ways to summon and activate Goblin Bombs, so if you stick a few on the board, this can be a massive burst card. Hard to say, the card has some potential, but might end up like Corpse Widow, good on paper but too slow in reality.

Card rating: 6/10

Research Project

Coldlight Oracle for Mage, in a form of a spell. 1 mana cheaper, but without a 2/2 body. However, the body part can basically be ignored – Coldlight was never played for the body in Mage. The card has seen play in slow, combo decks such as Freeze Mage and Exodia Mage simply to cycle more. Those kind of uninteractive decks didn’t really care about opponent drawing cards most of the time, because their cards were much more important. Getting to the stalls, freezes, and finally the win condition – that’s what this kind of card is good for.

As much as I’d call it really strong last year, it’s really hard to say right now. With Ice Block rotating out, those kind of uninteractive shenanigans are significantly weaker right now. Maybe if Exodia is still played, it will be used to cycle faster. But in a regular Mage deck, you don’t really want to give your opponents more draw. Even in the Tempo Mage, more draws for the opponent means that they will more likely have a way to heal up etc. And while you value your draws more than your opponent’s, you get only +1 card advantage and have to spend mana, they get those 2 cards absolutely for free.

Might see play in Wild, where Ice Block still exists. Or maybe in some combo deck that wants to cycle as quickly as possible. But overall I don’t think that it’s a good card since Ice Block is out of the Standard.

Card rating: 3/10

Flark’s Boom-Zooka

When it comes to the flavor, this might be my favorite expansion so far. The card’s design is just so cool! Like this one. You’re a Hunter, so what are you doing with your minons? Shoot them on the rockets straight from your deck, so they can attack the opponent’s minions and explode. Exactly.

This seems like a fit into a kind of Big/Recruit Hunter deck, but not just any. For example, you would really want to cut most of the low cost stuff, such as Fire Fly or Stitched Tracker. You basically don’t want to summon 1/2’s or 2/2’s with this. You want bigger minions, with Deathrattles. That’s the best way to utilize this card – stuff like Savannah Highmane and Abominable Bowman, for example. Cards that will probably clear something and then stick another minion to the board. This card is bad as a removal only, and bad as a board fill only (I mean, pulling out Devilsaur Egg gives you 5/5, but it costs 8 mana, so not amazing) – you really need a mix of both.

Making this card work might be a huge deck building challenge, not the first time in this expansion. It will require lots and lots of theorycrating, and it might not even work in the end. Having to cut absolutely every single small-midrange minion, as well as minion such as Carnivorous Cube and Witchwood Grizzly (because that’s not something you want to pull out with this) might make the deck bad. Maybe something like an early-mid game shell of Spell Hunter, with a late game huge Deathrattle finisher? Yeah… this is one of the cards that can really go either way, and will need to playtest it first before really saying.

Card rating: Honestly, either 1/10 or 10/10. I’m leaning towards it not working, but I might be absolutely surprised.

Beakered Lightning

An early AoE removal for Shaman! But it ain’t Maelstrom Portal. While I’d say that 0+2 overload cost is generally better than 2 mana, not summoning a random 1-drop makes a huge difference. Not to mention that this hits ALL minions, not only your opponent’s minions, which is another reason why it’s worse (technically it can be upside sometimes, but later about that).

First of all, we can’t underestimate 0 mana spells. They can be really powerful in the right scenario. I just can’t stop wondering why does this Overload for 2. If it was like Zap! and Overloaded for 1, it would make much more sense to run it. In your usual Shaman deck, this is mostly going to be a meta call. If Odd Paladin or any other deck flooding the board with 1 health minions runs rampant, then there’s no reason to not run it. It can also combo well with Bloodmage Thalnos or another source of Spell Damage. I don’t like the fact that it hits EVERYTHING on the board, not just opponent’s minions, though. While it’s often an upside in Warrior (they have lots of Whirlwind synergies), it’s not really in Shaman. The only case in which this is an upside is Acolyte of Pain on the board, basically. The downside seems especially big when you roll a Spell Damage Totem – sure, dealing 2 is better, but the Totem (and your other Totems, for that matter) just dies.

It can be a nice addition to Malygos Shaman. In aggressive matchups, if you’re holding Malygos in your hand, sometimes a Turn 6 Eureka! + this can be a full board clear, and it still leaves a 4/6 Maly on the board. Later in the game you can also combo it with Omega Mind and Maly for a board clear + massive heal.

It has some nice synergy with Thunderhead – 0 mana Overload spell, and Thunderhead summons the 1/1’s AFTER you play a spell, so they won’t die. At the same time, Thunderhead is a good fit into Token Shaman, while this has an anti-synergy with Token Shaman.

So my guess is that it will be a meta call. If Odd Paladin will run rampant, having a way to clear the 1/1’s and outtempo them outweighs the fact that you will be overloaded for 2 next turn. Like, if they go for Lost in the Jungle T1, then Hero Power T2, this + a 2-drop will be a great answer, even if you will only have 1 mana to work with on T3.

Card rating: Meta call, but my guess would be 6/10

Whirliglider

It has incredibly weak stats, but it summons a Goblin Bomb, so I guess it makes it fair. Definitely bad in a deck that can’t take advantage of the Bomb. But it might be playable in a deck that wants to summon as many Bombs as possible and utilize them. That said, I feel like “Bomb Hunter” has enough ways to summon them already so it looks unnecessary.

Like, it’s similar to Bomb Toss, but it gives you a 2/1 body instead of dealing 2 damage. Deal 2 damage is definitely stronger, because it scales better into the late game, but it’s not the worst thing ever in a deck like that. Overall, okay card in a Bomb deck and bad outside.

Card rating: 5/10

Violet Haze

Really bad card. Not only it costs like a Standard card draw (2 for 3), but it also adds random cards. It’s even worse than something like Thoughtsteal, which at least most likely gives you some playable cards, becasue your opponent put them in their deck in the first place. Like, I’d play Mimic Pod over this any day. Getting a card and its copy from your deck is way better, and Mimic Pod still doesn’t see play.

The fact that those cards are Deathrattles helps A BIT for the sake of synergies, but random Deathrattles aren’t that exciting at all. There are lots of bad Deathrattle cards you might get from this. I’d say that it’s one of the worst class cards in the set, to be honest. Even a full Deathrattle deck wouldn’t want to play it. It might make sense if you could DISCOVER them, but getting 2 completely random cards for 3 mana is just terrible.

Card rating: 2/10

Brainstormer

Well, the card would be interesting if it started at 2 health. At 1 health, it just seems too hard to make it work. You need to have 3 spells in your hand for it to be a vanilla 3/4, with a downside of being vulnerable to Silence. You need to get it to AT LEAST 3/5 for it to be worth (given the Silence downside), but realistically it would be great only past that – at 3/6 and bigger. This way you get a 4-drop’s stats for 3 mana, which is great. So you need 3 spells in your hand for it to hit vanilla stats, 4 to be okay and 5 to be good.

It will never be big when played on the curve, even in the most spell-heavy decks. It might be pretty big later in the game, in something like Big Spell Mage for example, but a 3/6 for 3 would be strong if you could drop it on T3. It’s not really that strong later in the game.

Like I’ve said, if it started at 2 health, it would be easier to make it work. But in the current state, it’s pretty bad. Maybe if you build a really spell-heavy deck with lots of card draw, but it’s unlikely. Twilight Drake seems just better, because it gains health for each CARD in your hand, and it still doesn’t see play in most of the decks. Very meh card.

Card rating: 3/10

Bull Dozer

It’s clearly a filler card. Remember that Force-Tank MAX from GvG? It wasn’t played in any Meta deck ever, and this is pretty much on the same power level. It has 2 more Attack, but you pay 1 more mana. Huge pile of stats like that are never good, they’re just too slow. You can’t be spending 9 mana on a minion that doesn’t really do anything special, and doesn’t even have Taunt.

It will be an okay Arena card, but that’s basically it. Sometimes you will also Discover it from Omega Assembly or Dr. Boom’s Hero Power if you need a big minion. It might be cool with Skaterbot, but again, only if you Discover it, because you really don’t want to put it into your deck.

I really like the art, though! There’s something uncanny about it.

Card rating: 2/10

Venomizer

They always drop some really good cards in the final dump, and here’s one. I expected a 2/2 Mech with Magnetize, but it also gives Poisonous? Well, that’s absolutely crazy. To be honest, now all of those Goblin Bombs got much, much better. If you can Magnetize onto them, clear something with Poisonous and then deal 2 damage to your opponent’s face, now that’s really worth it.

This card is just solid. Dropping it as a 2/2 for 2 with Poisonous can be good sometimes, it can be used to change your opponent’s plans of dropping a big minion and forcing him to remove this instead. Or it can get a nice trade up in some cases.

Magnetize it onto the Upgradeable Framebot and you get an early 3/7 with Poisonous – solid stats and it clear absolutely everything. Lots of Mechs have high health, so it can be a great counter.

It also has synergy with Missile Launcher, but I’m not so sure about that combo anyway. Definitely better than using Toxic Arrow, but it’s 2 cards combo that costs 8 mana still. Not sure if that combo will see play, but it doesn’t matter – this card is just good. It looks like one of the best Mechs in the set.

Card rating: 9/10

Cloakscale Chemist

Mediocre card. If you try to pack too many keywords into a 2-drop, it’s going to be severely understatted. Stealth on this card seems a bit unnecessary – it has Divine Shield so it’s usually going to survive anyway, and it’s not like Stealthing a 1 Attack minion is going to matter. There are lots of better 2-drops to play, especially since this doesn’t have any tribe tags.

It reminds me of Silent Knight a bit. Silent Knight has actually seen a bit of play in Water Rogue, but that was only because the deck used Shadow Sensei, which could buff it on the curve. This doesn’t have this kind of synergy right now. Maybe in future, but I have no clue whether they will release synergies later down the road, so I have to rate it like it is right now – which is not the worst minion ever, but below average.

It makes sense to put into your deck only if you REALLY want it to survive on the board. Maybe you play some buffs, maybe some combo that requires a minion. But I can’t think of a deck like that right now, to be honest (2 attack is too low for Combo Priest).

Card rating: 4/10

Unpowered Mauler

Really bad. It reminds me of the Argent Watchman from TGT, which was completely unplayable in Constructed. You see, 2/4 stats on a 2-drop aren’t even that impressive in Constructed. Like, Vulgar Homunculus has a Taunt on top of them, a Demon tag and the damage it deals is often an upside (Spellstone), and yet it’s not a broken card that has to be immediately nerfed.

This is a 2/4 with a massive downside. You need to do something extra (cast a spell in this case) to even attack with it. Definitely not worth it. It would need to be like a 4/4 to make sense with this kind of effect. Terrible card.

Card rating: 1/10

Crazed Chemist

This is like a 5 mana 4/4 with Cold Blood effect. Since it’s Combo not a Battlecry, it’s a bit harder to make it work, but it’s still really big. I could totally see Odd Rogue wanting to run it. A permanent +4 Attack buff is very powerful, especially if you add a body. I feel like this might replace Cobalt Scalebane. While Scalebane has a better body, this being an immediate effect makes it significantly better. Scalebane has a high chance to buff a minion you will never get to attack with, and in case of this, you will very often buff something to trade up or just push for immediate extra 4 face damage.

You can play it with Southsea Deckhand on Turn 6 to get a 6/1 with Charge and a 4/4, really solid play. On top of that, Odd Rogue sticking any minion on the board will be even more deadly. I think that this card will see a bit of play. I feel like it’s still worse than Fungalmancer, because it doesn’t buff health, but Scalebane is often too slow in that deck, unlike this card. The only issue is that activating combo on a 5 mana card is not always easy, but Odd Rogue can already make it work on Vilespine Slayer.

Card rating: 7/10

Toxicologist

Well, right now I see a single deck that would want to play this card – Kingsbane Rogue. The deck is depserately looking for more ways to buff the weapon, since lots of them have rotated out. It has got a Cutthroat Buccaneer last expansion, but it wasn’t enough. This card is better, to be honest – while it has weaker stats, Kingsbane cares more about the buff than the minion’s stats. And this adds the same amount of Attack, for 1 mana less and on a Battlecry instead of Deathrattle.

Long story short, it will definitely see play in Kingsbane Rogue, but that’s probably it. Other than that, we don’t really have other decks that would want to play 2 mana 2/2 that buffs weapon.

Card rating: 8/10 in Kingsbane Rogue, but the deck will still most likely be bad in Standard

Damaged Stegotron

Another one of those cards that are mostly meant to be cheated out somehow, not played from the hand. If you play it from the hand, you end up with a 5/6 Mech Taunt for 6 mana, which is really mediocre, pretty much vanilla stuff you would never want to play. But if you somehow manage to get it out of your hand, then it’s a 5/12 Taunt for 6, WAY better. Like, Sleepy Dragon with an extra point of Attack.

Which means that you can utilize it in let’s say Paladin deck with Kangor's Endless Army. While at first it will be a 5/6, if you end up reviving it, it will be a full 5/12 Taunt.

It can be used instead of Sleepy Dragon in Big/Recruit Warrior. If you Recruit it, it’s 5/12. If you draw it, you can summon it with The Boomship. Or in the worst case scenario, just drop it as a 6 mana 5/6 Taunt.

It also makes some sense in Priest deck – it still has 12 max health, so you can heal it up like Injured Blademaster.

Overall, I believe that this minion should see some play. Not for its vanilla stats, but for the fact that you can do much more with it in the right deck. It’s not exciting to play by itself, but if you revive it/cheat it out, then it’s amazing.

Card rating: 7/10

Ectomancy

The card has a very high potential, but it’s also difficult to make it work. It’s a 6 mana spell, which does nothing by itself. If you play a deck like Cube Warlock, which this might fit into best, most of the time your opponent tries to deal with your big Demons anyway, so you won’t Carnivorous Cube them. Or well, Faceless Manipulator them. If one Demons sticks, then Faceless is just better – it does the same for 1 mana and is more flexible, because it can copy non-Demon cards too.

On the other hand, if you get a board with a few Demons sticking, then the only thing that can save your opponent is a massive AoE clear anyway, so this might not be that good. Like, if you play Gul’dan and your opponent doesn’t clear, then you a) probably don’t need more damage and b) probably don’t have space on your board anyway. Remember that it can’t summon more than 3 Demons anyway, because you’re limited by board space.

The best case scenario is having something like two Doomguards sticking and then playing this for 2 more… but that would rarely be relevant. So I don’t believe that it will be played in something like Cube Warlock. Maybe as a Bloodbloom combo? Like, you drop Doomguard from Skull, Faceless it, then play Bloodbloom + this… 20 damage in total. But pretty situational.

Maybe in a Demon Zoo Warlock kind of thing? If you would consistently have a few Demons on your board, having a way to duplicate all of them could be nice. Again, especially with Bloodbloom. You don’t care that much about damage anyway, and if you could let’s say copy a Flame Imp, Vulgar Homunculus and Despicable Dreadlord for 2 mana, then it would be pretty nuts.

The card has some potential, but at 6 mana it seems expensive, and the Bloodbloom would most likely need more targets for it to be worth it. So it might be difficult to make it work.

Card rating: 6/10

Electrowright

In some of the decks, the condition is not that hard to meet, actually. For example, Big Spell Mage – the deck packs so many 5+ mana spells that it will activate lots of times. But even then, would a Big Spell Mage want this? I would honestly prefer Tar Creeper most of the time, you don’t really care about lots of stats in the early game, you prefer surviving, and Tar is technically a 3/5 Taunt from your opponent’s perspective. And it never fails, unlike this one. Because even in a deck like Big Spell Mage, you MIGHT end up with no 5+ mana spells on Turn 3.

But in most of the decks, even those who run lots of high cost spells, it might not be consistent enough. And even then, those decks are usually slow, and you’d prefer a 3 mana 4/4 in some sort of aggressive/tempo deck. And those don’t play enough big spells…

So all in all, in the decks in which it’s relatively easy to activate, you might not want to play it. And in the decks that you might want to play it, it would be hard to activate.

Card rating: 4/10

Elementary Reaction

If you don’t meet the condition, it’s a 2 mana cycle, which is really bad, but usable if you really need it. If you meet the condition, however, it’s a 2 mana Mimic Pod, which is really powerful.

The problem is always – is there actually a deck you’d want to play it in? Elemental Shaman is obvious answer, but the deck is non-existent and it won’t likely change. Pure Elemental deck simply doesn’t work, because it’s too fair. Most of the time, you have to play pretty slow minions on the curve, while your opponents are flooding the board, cheating mana or doing crazy combos all the time.

But it would absolutely fit into Shaman decks running a bunch of Elementals. How many of them? Well, that’s a bit hard to say. For example, Shudderwock Shaman might not run enough, with 2x Glacial Shard and Grumble, Worldshaker, that’s only 3 in total. However, maybe in a more Token-oriented deck, which runs Fire Fly, the new Thunderhead etc.? That said, in that kind of deck, Earthen Might seems better, because it also adds value, but also some on-board tempo.

Really hard to say, this card seems really good in theory, but it might be hard to actually fit somewhere. I still have to rate it highly, because let’s be honest, playing an Elemental isn’t a huge requirement in Shaman, and 2 mana Mimic Pod would be pretty nuts.

Card rating: 8/10

Glowstone Technician

Handbuffs have already mostly rotated out from Standard. Doppelgangster is also no longer there. So would you really want to play this card?

Well, the main issue I have with it is that it simply comes out too late. Smuggler's Run was better, because you could e.g. play it on T2 or T3 and then flood the board with buffed minions. This comes down on Turn 6, so you need to keep all of your tokens and stuff until then, which doesn’t seem like a great strategy. Not to mention that a 6 mana 3/4 body is very, very slow. It’s even slower than the 5 mana Grimestreet Enforcer, which was already too slow most of the time. You pay one extra mana and get an even smaller body here…

I just don’t see enough synergies to make it work in Standard. Drygulch Jailor and Saronite Chain Gang are probably the only ones. But again, you would need to be holding onto lots of cards until Turn 6, which means that you wouldn’t be doing anything, and then dropping a super slow tempo play, so most of the time you would just lose the game by that point. It’s cool to see more handbuff cards, but it doesn’t look good.

Maybe, just maybe in some Even Paladin deck that wants to keep a high hand size and generate lots of small tokens from Drygulch Jailor.. but I’m not sure if it will be good enough.

Card rating: 3/10

Goblin Prank

It ain’t no Power Overwhelming, but PO was one of the stronger cards in Warlock, so it would be a huge mistake to reprint it in a class that would take almost as much advantage of it as Warlock.

This one costs 1 more mana and has a weaker buff, but it adds Rush to a minion. If you have something on the board already and just want to trade up, the Rush part might be pointless. But it has some nice combo with Deathrattle minions you’re playing from your hand. For example, you can drop Devilsaur Egg + this on T5. Not only you pop it immediately, but you also probably clear some 3-drop. It also works really well with Carnivorous Cube. If you Cube something and play this, you can clear a big minion with Cube immediately (up to 7 health) and then the Cube pops, which is ultimately what you want. You can also Play Dead it immediately if you want more.

Looks really interesting in Deathrattle Hunter, but it means that you have to drop Keleseth… which might make it hard to fit. But it’s definitely powerful and it should find a way into the meta somehow.

Card rating: 8/10

Holomancer

5 mana 3/3 with mediocre effect, it’s a really bad card. If you drop it against Aggro, they will probably have something on the board / weapon / etc. to clear it. If you can drop it in the first place without dying, because that’s a massive tempo sacrifice. Even if you get an extra 1/1 or two, that’s not enough.

It seems like another anti-Big decks tech, which prevents people from playing huge minions like Harbinger Celestia, but this is even worse. Those Big decks can clear a 5 mana 3/3 without any problem, and then they will just drop their minions like they wanted to. It’s just too easy to play around. If it had more health or something, then maybe, but with those stats it’s horrible.

Card rating: 1/10

Kaboom Bot

It’s a bit like a bigger, Mech version of Volatile Elemental, a card that has seen zero play. And this will also see no play, most likely. I know that it’s Neutral, but just compare it to Spider Bomb… while Spider Bomb has insane late game scaling, this will stop killing minions with 5 or more health, which is basically most of the mid/late game minions. And it can’t even Magnetize onto something to trigger the effect immediately.

A pretty bad card. Would be really good if it was a Battlecry, but not really as a Deathrattle. Hunter is basically the only Mech deck that has Deathrattle synergies like that, and Hunter has a better option anyway.

Card rating: 2/10

Loose Specimen

If you drop it on the empty board, it’s a 5 mana 6/6. But would any deck actually want a vanilla 5 mana 6/6? Exactly, I don’t think so.

If you have actual minions on the board, then this absolutely sucks, it’s unplayable.

So in order for this to work, you need minions that actually benefit from getting damaged. For example, if you have Acolyte of Pain on the board, then this might make sense. Or, I don’t know, Warrior minions such as Armorsmith or Frothing Berserker, but assuming that you have enough other minions so they won’t likely die. Maybe you can use it to activate Blackhowl Gunspire? But the thing is, the card usually dies right after it’s played, because if you play it, your opponent knows that you have lots of ways to activate it.

Maybe use it in Egg/Bomb deck to sort of activate the Deathrattles while putting a big body on the board?

It might not be AS bad as it first seems, but it still doesn’t seem good. You would need a really specific deck that wants to damage/kill own minions for it to be good, but even then the 5 mana cost makes it hard to combo with stuff immediately.

Card rating: 4/10

Mecharoo

This. This should see play. Remember Possessed Villager? It was a Zoo staple for a long time, and it didn’t even have any kind of tribe tag! Of course, the meta was different back then, right now 1 mana 1/3’s are much more common, so it might not get that many great trades. But it just show that a card like that has potential – after all, the meta will change a bunch of times before it rotates out. Still, it’s comparable to let’s say Argent Squire, which also sees play right now. In this case, both parts are Mechs, so they can be Magnetized onto, so it can obviously slot into Mech decks.

It’s a really solid, sticky 1-drop. That’s one thing aggressive Mech decks might have needed – we’ve seen some 1-drop Mechs, but only like 2 or 3 of them were good (mostly class cards). I like it much more than Faithful Lumi – both cards have 2/2 stats in total, but unlike Lumi, this makes a good Turn 1 play most of the time.

This is not as crazy as some other 1-drops (like Paladin’s Glow-Tron for example) but if you build a more aggressive Mech deck, this will likely be a part of it.

Card rating: 8/10

Microtech Controller

While 3 mana for a 2/1 + 1/1 + 1/1 doesn’t seem great (Eggnapper, while not summoning immediately, had more Attack and was more sticky, which were good things), they make some sense in Token-oriented decks. If you run lots of buffs, stuff like Flametongue Totem etc. then this card might be useful. Still, we’ve got SO MANY new cards that might fit those kind of decks and I simply don’t think that this is one of the better cards for that strategy.

Might find some niche use, but in general I don’t believe that it will be that good. On the one hand, spreading stats between 3 bodies seems nice, on the other hand, if your opponent also has a few minions on the board, they will be easier to trade. Like, if he has Fire Fly + the token, he clears the 1/1’s and you end up with a 2/1 vs 2x 1/1, while also behind on mana. Not great.

Card rating: 2/10

Piloted Reaper

New, more fair version of Piloted Shredder. It has the same stats, the same “sticky” nature, and is even easier to control. So it’s better, right? Well, not exactly. What made Piloted Shredder really good is that it generated an EXTRA random 2-drop. This one pulls it from your hand, meaning that despite you getting an extra tempo, you end up with a card disadvantage. Also, you usually want to play your 1 mana card on T1, then 2 mana card on T2. So by the time you play this, you might not have anything to pull out of your hand. Same goes for the late game scenarios – especially in a top-deck mode, you won’t keep your 2-drop just because you might draw this next turn.

That said, Mechs have some good 2-drops. For example, pulling out Upgradeable Framebot is a really solid tempo play. But that’s like the best case scenario. Lots of time it will be just a vanilla 4 mana 4/3. And later in the game, when you have enough mana, you could just play that 2-drop besides it, you don’t need to cheat it out on the board.

Might still be played in some Zoo-style decks, but it’s far from the power level of Piloted Shredder. But funnily, it being more controllable makes it a nice trolling material. For example, you run it in a Doomsayer deck. Your opponent trades into it, not expecting Doomsayer, but rather some small minion he can kill… and boom. Mind games! Most likely not a great strategy, but hey, at least my reaction would be priceless.

Card rating: 7/10

Rocket Boots

When playing WoW, I ALWAYS picked Engineering because I loved how fun it was, and Rocket Boots were one of my favorite items (and well, later enchantment). Super fun to play in PvP, could do some crazy stuff with them.

As for the card. Giving minion Rush is theoretically worth 1 mana (Charge, which should just be renamed to Rush probably), but the card doesn’t see play. However, adding a cycle might make it actually worth it. It’s like Paladins never played Hand of Protection, but Potion of Heroism is played in slower builds just because of the cycle.

However, the thing is that Warrior doesn’t really struggle when it comes to cycling. It’s the best class to put Acolyte of Pain into and it has a lot of extra ways to draw cards, including Battle Rage.

That said, it would make sense in some kind of Combo Warrior deck, which wants to cycle as quickly as possible. 2 mana cycle with a minor effect would fit right into that kind of build. For example, you could play it with Wild Pyromancer for what is basically a Swipe, or with Acolyte of Pain I’ve mentioned already to cycle 2 cards and activate Execute on some bigger minion. But I don’t think that any deck right now would really want to play this card, it’s average.

Card rating: 5/10

Rusty Recycler

Between its name and its looks, there’s no doubt that it’s a WALL-E reference. But as a card, it’s mostly a pack filler. Paying 5 mana for a 2/6 Taunt is really weak, even if it has Lifesteal. We had a 4 mana 1/6 Taunt with Lifesteal and it was horrible (although it has some amazing art – Felsoul Inquisitor). 1 mana for +1 Attack doesn’t seem very exciting.

If anything, this card’s only hope is the Mech tag. Magnatize has some nice synergy with Lifesteal, if you can buff it easily with another Mech, then it might be worth it. But realistically, this is not going to survive a turn most of the time. 2 attack also means that most of the decks will be able to trade into it without killing their own minions… which means that it’s still bad.

Rotten Applebaum turned out to be a pretty average card, and it seems much better than this guy, mostly because it actually kills lots of stuff that attack it.

Card rating: 3/10

Spark Drill

Honestly, it just looks terrible. You pay 5 mana to deal 5 damage to a minion… Or drop it as a 5/1 minion, but that’s even worse. 5 damage to a minion that can’t even go through a Taunt would need to be priced at like 3 mana to see play, I wouldn’t pay more for that kind of effect. So why do you pay so much more here? Well, so you can get two 1/1 Sparks with Rush. They cost 1 mana each too, which is important to mention.

While the sparks have some versatility – you can save them for later, use them on different targets etc. it’s still 8 mana in total for 7 damage. There’s basically no way this is playable in Constructed.

Card rating: 1/10

Spark Engine

This card would actually be balanced, and probably not even too strong if it SUMMONED the 1/1 Spark with Rush immediately. It would either be a 2/1 + 1/1 or a 2/1 with 1 immediate damage to a minion, neither of which is too strong. But you pay 2 mana to get a 2/1 with no immediate effect on the board. And then you need to spend ANOTHER 1 mana for 1/1 with Rush. So the entire card, which probably wouldn’t even see play at 2 mana, is priced at 3. The Spark would need to cost 0 mana for this card to see play, but since it’s not the case, it’s way too slow. Still better than the Spark Drill, but not by much.

Card rating: 2/10

Spring Rocket

Mecha’thun, Mecha’thun, MECHA’THUN! Of course, it’s a new version of Disciple of C'Thun. Same stats, same effect. But instead of buffing C’Thun, this one has a Mech tag. Honestly, Disciple of C’Thun has seen play mostly BECAUSE it buffed C’Thun. It was only okay by itself, and okay cards generally don’t make cut.

Like, you could somewhat compare it to Kobold Apprentice. Both are 3 mana 2/1’s that cast a 1 mana spell (Arcane Missiles vs Arcane Shot), and Kobold Apprentice doesn’t really see play. This has a slight advantage of having a Mech tag, but honestly, it’s not that big. It’s not like it’s a body that will stick to the board, it will die the moment you drop it most of the time, so Magnetize shenanigans will be difficult. It can theoretically be discounted by Galvanizer, and that’s probably it.

It’s an okay card, and it might see some play, especially if meta will demand early game 2 mana removals. If everyone will play 3+ health minions, though, it doesn’t make much sense. Average card, but average cards can also see some play if the time is right.

Card rating: 5/10

Steel Rager

I really enjoy seeing more Ragers, but the flavor is slightly ruined – it costs 4 and not 3. Honestly, it might have been too good at 3 mana, and ragers always have 5 in their stat-line, so if it was 3 mana, it would probably need to be a 4/1 or something…

Still, it’s probably the best Rager we had so far…. buuut it’s still bad. Just compare it to Swift Messenger, a card that notably sees zero Constructed play. Messenger is either a 2/6 or a 6/2 with Rush, both are generally better than this one. 6/2 is just straight up an upgrade, and 2/6 is often a better stat-line to trade into early game minions.

It has a Mech tag, but I don’t believe that it will matter. It’s hard to Magnetize something onto it, because it will never stick – you always want to run him into something right away, or else it dies to a ping. Since it has Rush, you can Magnetize something onto it in the late game immediately, but given it’s low health, it’s not the best play anyway – it will probably die when trading into a bigger minion anyway.

So yeah, best of the Ragers, but still a bad card. So at least that flavor is kept intact.

Card rating: 2/10

Topsy Turvy

Given that some Divine Spirit + Inner Fire Priest builds have used Crazed Alchemist, despite not caring about his body at all, makes me think that they would definitely prefer this spell instead. Not only it’s easier to fit into your turn, but also has extra synergy with Lyra the Sunshard. In a meta where you want to run Inner Fire Priest, but people are playing Skulking Geist, this card is definitely a solid option.

Besides that, it also has the same extra tech uses as Crazed Alchemist – clearing any low attack/high health minion, especially 0 attack minions – Totems, Doomsayers etc. But even when let’s say Big Druid drops a 4/12 Taunt, flipping it around means that you might be able to get through it way, way easier.

You can theoretically play it on Zerek, Master Cloner to get an extra 5/5 when it does. Well, but I’m not sure if it’s worth a card, and if this card would even fit into a Zerek deck.

I suspect that if Divine Spirit + Inner Fire Priest will be played, this card will be at least an one-of tech, just like Alchemist was. In the right meta, it might even be worth to put 2 copies in. I like this card, it’s not overpowered or anything, but supplements the build nicely.